A heaven, a gateway, a hope: A Review of Jo Malone's Sugar and Spice Collection

Yes, dear reader, I know what you're thinking: where you been, fool?

The answer is everywhere and nowhere, dear reader.  In my heart...in my head....I've been to world that only exist in my own dreams.  In reality? Mostly in Oregon, but also in Washington for a few weekends.

Either way, I obviously have not been here enough.  I hear you, reader.  You love me, but you'd also love a little consistency in posting.  This is a more than fair critique.

So, here's a promise from me to you.  Starting now, my goal is to be here at least once a week, every week, for the rest of 2013.  It's not as much as I'd like, but I wanted to keep my goals and commitments realistic.  And that's my commitment to you and this space.  Once a week. Be here or be square.

 Jo Malone's English Limited Edition Sugar and Spice Collection

Here's something I've enjoying lately -- the sugary sweet fruity food concoctions that make up this season's limited edition Jo Malone offerings, also known as the Sugar and Spice collection.  Christine Nagel of Mane is responsible for these five British dessert inspired delights.  She did the tea line from last season that I felt sort of meh about, but she also made Wild Bluebell and English Pear & Freesia, which I like, so I had hopes for the line.  I love a well made gourmand, and have absolutely no objection to smelling like food. So when they called and invited me to the formal presentation of the collection at Nordstrom's here in Portland, I decided I would find a way to make it work with my ridiculously busy schedule.

I went to their fancy food and presentation 'do, complete with the presence of a delightful British man also known as a national trainer for Jo Malone.  As he laid the thick and delicious patter of a man with a product to sell on us, all I wanted was to get to the juice.  That said, there was something a little delightful about drinking carefully concocted theme drinks and getting to eat the dessert the scent is based on while smelling the scents simultaneously.  And yes, they gave us delightful hand massages and a set of collection-inspired recipe cards, so it as an excellent afternoon of pampering. But let's not make the mistake here that they did there, shall we?  Let's get to the perfume.

The Sugar and Spice Collection contains the following five scents:

Lemon Tart - The mouth-watering tang of lemon tart. Sparkling with citrus fruits and verbena, contrasted with swirls of meringue and lemon thyme. Refreshing. 

Redcurrant & Cream - A summer pudding. Sharp-scarlet juices of redcurrants, lush strawberries and raspberries, rippling through creamy musk. Vivacious and enticing. 

Elderflower & Gooseberry - A voluptuous gooseberry fool. Crushed, summer-green gooseberries, juicy with lychee, enfolded into the soft delicacy of elderflower. Tender and feminine. 

Ginger Biscuit - Just-baked biscuit. Spiced with ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon, melting into caramel. Butter-crumbly with roasted hazelnuts. Warmed by tonka bean and vanilla. Irresistible. 

Bitter Orange & Chocolate - The bite of bitter orange, layered with dark chocolate.  Orange peel counterpoised with warm, powdery cocoa, milky coconut and coumarin.  Sumptuous and addictive.

Based solely on the descriptions, I went into the event thinking I was most likely to walk out with the Lemon Tart or the Elderflower & Gooseberry.  I enjoy a good lemon tart, and I was hoping the sugary aspect of the line would keep it away from the astringent/cleaner end of the citrus scent market.  As for the Elderflower & Gooseberry, I like drinking St. Germain as much as the next girl, so I thought there was promise to be held there.

Lemon Tart was foodie, but it was far too light for my taste.  It felt like it was a barely there scent.  I think part of the issue was that the focus of the scent seemed to be on the crust, and much like a tart with too much crust and not enough filling, it left something to be desired.  Nice, but not for a lemon lover like me.

Elderflower & Gooseberry on the other hand was a strange synthetic mess on me!  I was really sad about it, too.  It opened with the olfactory equivalent of white noise, fruits mash of indeterminate origin,  and something sharp, like alcohol. If you'd asked me before the event, I'd have told you this certain to be my favorite of the group.  Worse still, lots of the attendants seemed to really like it so I have to believe this one was mostly bouncing off my body chemistry. Others found bliss, so you might, too.  For me, though? Nope.  A complete nonstarter.

Next up? Ginger Biscuit. Now we were getting somewhere.  Ginger-in all its various forms-is the favored flavor and scent of El Hubs, so much so that I wore a relatively inexpensive and now defunct ginger scent, Origins Ginger with a Twist, on my wedding day because he liked it and back then I didn't know jack about perfume.  So here is this sweet, foodie delight with a legitimately realistic ginger happening in the opening. David eats candied ginger by the pound, and this is like that first burst when one bites past the sugary outside and into the stinging tartness in the middle.   After about twenty minutes, it slides into a delicious buttery cookie with crystallized ginger topping.  The vanilla and tonka make up the cookie dough, anchoring all that ginger decidedly in the dessert world. This one was a win for me, and I knew it would be a win for David.  Into the basket to purchase it went.

Redcurrant & Cream is a delightful berry in the opening, but that disappears quite quickly. Then it's all about musk and cream, smooth across the palette with a bitter edge, like the berries underneath are sharp and green and not quite ripe.  Foodie? On me, it is decidedly less dessert-y than the rest of the collection. But it did feel like the buzz of stumble drunk bees buzzing in the open u-pick berry fields ones finds around Oregon and Washington in the warm, bright days of summer.  I knew I would want to wear the Ginger Biscuit on those bright warm days, and this was a light, full, colorful berry blend that I could see myself reaching for when late June and July rolled around.  After some lengthy internal debate, it went into the To Be Bought pile as well.

Last up, Bitter Orange & Chocolate.  If I had been laying bets before I smelled the collection, I'd have told you this one was destined to be the great loser of the bunch.  Good orange scents are surprisingly hard to find.  Good chocolate scents? Even harder.  To try to make a realistic blend of both that even remotely resembled one of my favorite holiday treats-the perennial chocolate orange-seemed a feat, frankly, beyond Jo Malone, and I say that as a fan of the line, generally speaking.

Boy, was I wrong.  This smells just like the shiny foil wrapped chocolate orange of my holiday dreams! Orange dominates in the opening, and while not all that reminiscent of the smell or taste of a real orange, it is pitch perfect for the orange that I know from the classic dessert. The chocolate is dry and a little powdery, but terrific. In my opinion, this is the it of this collection.  The trainer announced they had only four bottles of it left in Washington or Oregon, which tells me that my tastes must align with the 'fumies in my area, because I snatched a bottle up immediately.

There it is, my friends.  In the end I bought three bottles, and not one of them was one of the two I expected when I walked in the door.  Proof that try before you buy holds true for all noses. Am I sucker? For dessert scents, apparently I am.  But I've been living with these bottles for about a month now and I don't regret it at all.  I also got a ton of samples from the Cologne Intense collection I hadn't tried and a gift with purchase of 10ml of both Grapefruit, which I find useful for layering but not as a stand alone, and Orange Blossom, which is one of my favorites. Frankly? I feel like I made out like a bandit.

I checked online today, and the entire collection is still available online. All of the scents are available in the 50ml bottle for $60, but I advise you pop by your local Jo Malone counter and give them all a sniff before you commit.