Thinking outside of the box has been the secret to Jo Malone London’s reputation as a fragrance powerhouse, and English Pear & Freesia Cologne has been crucial to this success.
A bottle of the British lifestyle brand’s 15-year-old hero sku sells every 26 seconds, which equates to more than 100,000 units shipped per month – and the popularity of the chypre fruity and floral scent shows no signs of slowing down.
“It is incredible to think that it all started with one pear and a few freesias on the table,” says Céline Roux, VP Global Fragrance Development at Jo Malone London.
But, at the time, pear as a scent protagonist was not as common, so how did the Estée Lauder Companies-owned brand create the fragrance and turn it into a category-defining item that has stood the test of time?
And what happened when Jo Malone London tweaked this much-loved formula in 2023 to give it more “naturality”, switching the synthetic pear for its own natural pear ingredient?
Roux reveals all in the latest edition of Cosmetics Business’ ‘Untold Story’ series, explaining how English Pear & Freesia Cologne became, and has remained, a beauty staple.
How Jo Malone London’s English Pear & Freesia Cologne came to be…
Jo Malone London’s English Pear & Freesia Cologne was created in 2010 with the aim to create a scent around fruit that was not too gourmand or sugary.
The mission was to create a chypre fragrance construction – where you have several fragrances in a delicate balance, usually built around a woody, mossy accord – which was inspired by English orchards, with the pear fruit as the main focus.
“Someone who works with me was like, ‘Oh, actually, we have a beautiful patchouli that could be the story’, and I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, I want pear’,” explains Roux.
“I'm quite stubborn sometimes and, on this occasion, it was good that I was.”
It is this constant evolution and, even more nerve-wrecking, this was the first fragrance I worked on for the brand
Roux and her team aimed to unite the scent of pear with the key smells of the
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