Our relationship with our four-legged friends is also made up of small, everyday gestures: a walk, a filled food bowl, bath time. These simple routines show just how much animals have become part of our home life and, in recent years, have given rise to an increasingly diverse range of products and services. This is precisely where the new collaboration between Jo Malone London and WildWash begins.
When I speak with Céline Roux, Global Head of Fragrance at Jo Malone London, and Jane Cooper, founder of WildWash, I immediately realize that this project stems from real-life circumstances and a genuine love for animals. At Jo Malone London, dogs have always been a familiar presence: they feature in the brand’s imagery and, as Céline explains, are also part of the daily lives of the various teams. The idea of developing a product dedicated to them had therefore been around for some time, but the project only began to take shape when the brand met the right person to bring it to life: Jane Cooper. Jane tells me she began working with pet products nearly twenty years ago, when she found herself searching for a shampoo suitable for her dog, Missy. Unable to find a formula that met her needs, she decided to develop one herself. What began as a personal need evolved into WildWash, a company that has since been dedicated to finding pet care solutions and now works with thousands of dogs, from family pets to working dogs. It was precisely this attention to formulas and this genuine, personal passion that impressed Céline Roux when Jo Malone London began looking for a partner for the project. “We were very concerned about the formulas and the dogs,” she says, speaking about the research that preceded the collaboration. With Jane, she adds, the connection was immediate: they had found someone who shared the same attention to detail and the same approach.
This is how Orange & Cedarwood Dog Shampoo came to be, developed according to a principle that Jane sums up very simply: the dog comes first, then the fragrance. The formulation is based on the animal’s characteristics—the sensitivity of its skin and the needs of its coat—while the fragrance is added later. Dogs have more sensitive skin than humans and a particularly keen sense of smell—factors that require a specific approach when selecting ingredients. Orange and cedarwood—two elements that are also part of Jo Malone London’s olfactory vocabulary—were chosen specifically as part of this research. The ingredients must serve a specific purpose within the formula, be gentle and suitable for the animal’s skin, while also creating a pleasant fragrance. The result is a 285-ml shampoo, formulated with natural ingredients, designed to gently cleanse the coat and leave it soft and shiny.
There is also an interesting point of convergence in the way the two brands view nature. For WildWash, nature serves as the starting point for product formulation, while for Jo Malone London, it has always been one of the main sources of inspiration for creating its fragrances. In this case, the two perspectives converge in a product designed for a very specific moment in daily life. The packaging also adds a little element of surprise. The bottle is available with four different illustrations featuring four different dog breeds: when purchasing online, you won’t know which design you’ll receive until it’s delivered, while in boutiques you can choose your favorite, while supplies last.
The campaign features Blue, Tom Hardy’s French bulldog, who is already an ambassador for Jo Malone London’s Cypress & Grapevine fragrance. His presence charmingly grounds the project in the everyday context from which it originated: the relationship between people and their pets, and the gestures through which we care for them every day. This, in my opinion, is the most interesting aspect of the collaboration: a product born out of a concrete need and a very specific understanding of animals enters the world of Jo Malone London without losing its original purpose. Bath time remains a simple part of everyday life, yet it takes on a new dimension through the brand’s research into formulations and the sensory experience that has always been a hallmark of the house.
Jo Malone London × WildWash Orange & Cedarwood Dog Shampoo, 285 ml, will be available starting in early September at jomalone.eu/it/it and in Jo Malone London boutiques, priced at 23 euros.
[📷 Courtesy of Jo Malone London]
