Review - Lime, Basil & Mandarin Cologne (Jo Malone)

Originally posted at Dreamwidth on January 19, 2010

Lime Basil & Mandarin by Jo Malone is a citrus aromatic fragrance for women and men. Top notes are lime, mandarin orange and bergamot; middle notes are basil, caraway, lilac and iris; base notes are patchouli and vetiver.

So this is the review that very nearly wasn't...

Probably one of my earliest scent memories are of colognes. MovieMom was very fond of both 4711 and Extra Vielle. BPAL's colognes such as Casanova and Vicomte de Valmont both remind me of why I like the clean fresh cologne smell. So I had high hopes for the Lime, Basil and Mandarin.


On first spritz in the morning, I got a herbal cologne, that actually seemed *too* masculine for me (weird I know). It had a very clean soapy smell, that I found unremarkable and dried down to a very familiar patchouli and vetiver base. Don't get me wrong, nothing bad about it, but just... meh. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good scent, but didn't make me feel the way cologne usually does. (This is the point where writing about scent can be so problematic, because it is sometimes very hard to disassociate your emotions/memories fromt the scent that you're reviewing!). Plus, I'm not a big fan of soapy, if I want to smell of soap, I'll wash, rather than splash on something expensive. My reaction to this was so "nothing", neither like nor loathe, that I didn't feel a review would be interesting.

However, later on in the day I ended up refreshing it and got completely different notes. This time the herb hit was far better defined, not basil as I was expecting, but fresh chopped coriander (om nom nom!). On the drydown, I there was a much stronger lilac hit. That pesky vetiver still hung around, but this time the overall effect was dirty, rather than soapy.

Now lord only knows what was going on with my skin that would make something smell so different, or whether this cologne is a little schizo. Certainly it is more interesting than I first gave it credit for. On the downside, it is a cologne, so only lasts about 3 hours on my skin. I still don't think I'd buy a big bottle of this, it doesn't grab me by the heartstrings and the lime never gets a look in, which saddens me. Samples are available on ebay, but this is one I'd definitely recommend spritzing in store if you can.