I am frankly quite puzzled when it comes to my attraction to Poppy & Barley. Jo Malone is in general not known for ground-breaking compositions, but this one is literally non-descript. I have spent several years smelling and describing perfume, with a moderate level of success, but this one is… slightly fruity? Vaguely floral? A bit creamy? I really don’t know.

Poppy & Barley was first released as part of the English Fields in Spring 2018, a collection I liked more for the concept and bottle design than the actual scents. I smelled it and forgot about it immediately. I wasn’t much different when I tried the new release a week ago – it was pleasant, but nothing special. The scent is also rather faint and doesn’t last long, even compared to other Jo Malones (not known for great longevity in the first place) that I own.

BUT. As I discovered a little while after spraying myself last week, I love this fragrance when I get a whiff of it in the air – the trail it leaves behind just smells good to me, even if I still struggle to describe it. My theory is that I’m drawn to the milky, creamy and musky aspects of the scent, represented by the fig, wheat, barley and white musk notes. Be as it may, every time I come back to the room where I have sprayed myself, I’m happy that I own this bottle.

Do not let this talk of creaminess and muskiness fool you, though: this is still mostly a fresh and light scent, in keeping with the usual Jo Malone house style. Whoever wrote the copy calling it ‘dramatic, vibrant and iconic’ was being remarkably detached from reality as I know it. Poppy & Barley starts out with fruity notes (blackcurrant and fig according to the brand, although they smell abstractly fruity to me), moving into floral-powdery territory (still abstract, I don’t think it smells much like a real poppy), finishing off with grains and clean white musk. I’m not much into layering perfume, but this one does in fact work well with JM’s Wood Sage & Sea Salt, which adds some depth and complexity to the proceedings.

So what can I say? I have bought a scent that doesn’t smell like much and I only really like when it’s not on my body? This sounds exactly like the kind of thing I would do. But there is a place in my collection for something that projects a pretty, inoffensive aura on days that I have no time to regularly sniff my wrist anyway. And if nothing else, it makes for a gorgeous room spray.