I love living in Dubai, reveals Jo Malone - as she admits she was 'disillusioned' by UK taxes and healthcare and praises 'most wonderful leader' Sheikh Mohammed
The British perfumer, 61, has lived in a suite of five-star hotel in Dubai since 2021, with her husband Gary Willcox.
The couple, who are worth £15 million, enjoy the country's 'Golden Visa' scheme meaning they can live in the Emirate without paying any tax.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Jo said living in the Middle East has made her 'the happiest she's ever been in her life'.
Her day-to-day now includes working from the hotel's lounges, as well as lunch and Pilates at the hotel pool as well as evening sessions of Rummikub, a tile-based board game.
She sometimes is even allowed into the kitchen to cook with the hotel's chef.
Jo, who grew up on a council estate in South East London and thinks that 'people should pay taxes' added that she 'doesn't miss Britain's tax rates and healthcare systems'.
'What happens is, you start to become disillusioned.' she said.
'When you're working hard, you're paying your taxes, and then your child gets sick or your mother gets sick, and you take them to the hospital and you're waiting three days on a trolley'.
Jo, who received a CBE from the King in 2018, the emirate appeals to her due to 'year-round heat' and 'fragrant spices and smells' as well as the Middle East being a good place to 'expand the business into India and China'.
She also defended the country's human right's record and called the country's controversial billionaire ruler Sheikh Mohammed as 'just the most wonderful leader'.
'I believe every person has the right to be whoever they want to be, but you think the UK has got everything right, and the US has got everything right?'
'Well, honestly, you tell me a place you can go and live where you can tick every box 100 per cent.'
Jo - who created her brand in 1994 - has attributed her perfume success to her extremely good sense of smell - which she said has even said allowed her to predict the weather.
She has synesthesia, which causes senses to overlap. Some people, for example, can hear, taste or smell colours.
'Smell is like a tune in my head, with a melody and a harmony, base notes and high notes, which I then translate into fragrance and bottle,' she previously told the Mail.
This rare gift — which has won a loyal following for her bottles of perfume, such as lime, basil and mandarin, and white rose and lemon leaves — has served Jo very well.
It has been the driving force behind not one but two businesses and, in 2008, earned her an MBE.
Her original empire, Jo Malone — which started life with a small shop in Knightsbridge, — was bought in 1999 by cosmetics giant Estee Lauder for 'undisclosed millions'.
Jo stayed at the helm as creative director until 2006, when a gruelling battle with aggressive breast cancer forced her to re-evaluate her life, quit and walk away to enjoy a simpler life as a wife and mum to her then young son Josh.
For someone whose sense of smell is so acute, Jo was distressed to temporarily lose it while undergoing a gruelling course of chemotherapy in New York, after her breast cancer diagnosis in 2003.
'I was 37 when I was diagnosed. I had the world in my hand and, suddenly, I was given this terrible news. During chemotherapy, I completely lost my sense of smell,' she previously told the Mail.
'When I returned to Jo Malone, I remember standing in the new store in New York, thinking: 'I don't belong here any more.' No one at Estee Lauder made me feel unwelcome, but I just felt: 'It's time for me to go.' My little boy was only two and I wanted to be around for him.
'I think whenever you go through something life-changing, you go through a period of re-evaluation. If I'd given myself six months to a year, I probably would have felt different. But the first morning I woke up, I realised I'd made the right decision for the business, but the wrong decision for me.
'Every single day, I'd think: 'What am I going to do with myself?' I didn't know where to put all this creative energy.
'Gary is a very easy-going guy and he kept saying to me: 'Jo, let's just enjoy this moment', but I was like a caged tiger.'
Jo's golden handcuffs deal with Jo Malone prevented her from starting a new cosmetics business for five years after quitting. Once that time was up, returning as Jo Loves was far tougher than she thought. 'One day, I thought: 'I want to try again.' No one knew I'd left Jo Malone and my name was so synonymous with [that] brand, but I was a living person with the same dreams. Those first 18 months were the toughest of my life.
'Creating fragrances didn't come back to me naturally. I'd ask myself: 'Did I have one lucky break in life?' It took me six months, but I had to work at it again.
'It so resonated with me when I heard [pop star] Adele talking about her musical comeback after taking a break to have a baby and that fear of not being able to create again.'
Unable to use her full name, which now belonged to Estee Lauder for marketing, Jo struggled to come up with an alternative. It was her son who suggested 'Jo Loves'.
'We were sitting round the kitchen table and Josh just said: 'Mum, why don't you call it Jo Loves? You love fragrance and fragrance loves you,' ' says Jo, who launched in 2011 and opened her shop in 2013.
'I was still very proud of what I'd achieved with Jo Malone, but felt I'd lost my self-identity. I am not someone who gets depressed at all, but I felt very anxious I had lost my connection with creativity.
'I can create a fragrance, even if you blindfold me and tie my hands behind my back, but it's those really magical moments I am trying to create and it's frustrating when that inspiration is not around you.'
Jo now says says she plans to announce a new business venture that has nothing to do with fragrance.
She is also planning on selling Jo Loves, but she'll stay on to work with the business afterwards.
'I'm never going to leave her, because she's the last child I'm going to have, starting from scratch, in that genre.'
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