Perfume label Memo produces a memory of adventure

“Finding a perfume you really like is just as hard as finding a place you really love,” says Clara Molloy. She should know, not only has she traveled a lot in her life, she has in 2007 She also founded the perfume label Memo in Paris with her husband John, who was no less a travel enthusiast. Clara grew up in the city on the Seine as the daughter of Catalan parents and initially concentrated on writing poetry – and of course on traveling. She met on one of her trips she met Irish-born John Molloy, who worked in the fashion industry.

Both found themselves on the same chairlift that pulled them up a snowy mountain. The descent was difficult, he had a skiing accident, she helped him. They have been a couple ever since and at some point asked themselves how they could combine their love of traveling with their passion for good scents. Out came Memo.

The name is an abbreviation for memory. “It's about remembering places that magically attract you, whose landscapes imprint themselves in your memory as if they were something living,” says Clara Molloy during a conversation in Frankfurt, where she is presenting her new fragrance Sherwood.

It quickly becomes clear that she is the creative mind, the storyteller of the team. About the perfume she says: “This scent is like reading a bedtime story. You remember this place without actually having been there before.” So everyone has their own Sherwood. The perfume from the square glass bottle now exudes the creamy smell of sandalwood, which mixes with oak wood, with red notes of currants flashing in between and rose petals. “The story of Robin Hood is also a love story,” says Clara Molloy.

Her husband John adds the technical details and points out that there is also a lot of potential for upcycling in the perfume industry, i.e. for secondary and reuse. For the rose notes, products are used that would be discarded in the traditional process when extracting damask rose essence. “For example, we take the resulting rose water and make a concentrate out of it,” says John Molloy. An approach that not many perfume houses are yet taking.

But who do they actually design their perfumes for? The couple agree: for someone who is curious about the world, who doesn't keep their eyes down while walking through Paris. Fragrances for adventurers – or those who, wrapped in sandalwood and the scent of roses, make you dream of adventures.