“Scent goes straight to your limbic system and it has an immediate effect on your mood,” fragrance and lifestyle director Debbie Wild tells Luxury. “It has an immediate effect like music or taste because you think, ‘That reminds me of a place, I feel better now.’”

The “more English than the English” perfume house, which was acquired by US beauty conglomerate Estée Lauder in 1999, is to the scent business what Kanye West thinks he is to the zeitgeist.

The brand, which is lauded and loved by A-listers and home-makers from Notting Hill to New York, is fast becoming the jewel in the crown of the Estée Lauder Companies fragrance business.

In his wrap-up of the 2013 financial year, chief executive Fabrizio Freda partly credited the company’s wider success to Jo Malone London’s “robust growth” and rapid sales expansion in the British, Chinese, Brazilian and Middle Eastern markets.

The advent of social media has helped raise brand awareness among both regular and celebrity clientele.

London’s most notable party planner and best friend of Stella McCartney and the Jagger family, Fran Cutler regularly posts photos of her purchases to her 19,000 fans on Instagram.

She also introduced Kate Moss to the brand’s concept of combining two or more scents. The supermodel, like British socialite Poppy Delevingne earlier this year, then requested her wedding be scented exclusively by Jo Malone London candles.

Even teenagers are adopting the discerning yet cosy Jo Malone London lifestyle.

Closer to home, New Zealand singer Lorde burns the $85 Incense and Embers candle before her live shows after a suggestion from friend Taylor Swift.

Australia is also an emerging market for the brand.

There are more bricks and mortar stores in the pipeline following the opening of the Mosman, NSW, boutique in 2013, and the partnership with David Jones is set to expand into Adelaide later this year.

Online is burgeoning, with more than 10 per cent of annual sales stemming from the internet since the e-commerce site launched in 2007.

The downturn in retail has not affected the brand locally or globally says Wild, who credits the stability to chairman emeritus Leonard Lauder’s “lipstick index”, a phrase he coined in 2001 to describe the surge in cosmetic sales during the recession.

“I think it works in reverse for us, like the lipstick index, you want a lipstick to make you feel better because the gift of giving is so intrinsic to our DNA. Even just a small travel candle can cheer somebody up,” she says of the range which is still hand-crafted on an old dairy farm in Sussex.

Now stocked in 37 countries around the world and with more than 20 permanent scents, the base notes of every Jo Malone London creation consists of innovation, nostalgia and the brand’s British roots.

The newest perfume, Wood Sage and Sea Salt, is literally a breath of fresh air for the fragrance market because it was created with salt and natural fruit instead of flowers.

“It was a bit like cooking dessert or a cake without sugar,” global product development director Celine Roux says.

While the name may conjure up images of a lamb roast, the unisex scent is a homage to the English coast with hints of fresh air, sea spray and woody notes.

Basically, it’s the beach in a bottle (and candle form) minus the cliché scent of coconut. “When we say beach you can’t think of Australia and sun and sunscreen, this is about the English coast where you have to wear boots and a jacket. It’s green because it rains all the time and it is windy and fresh, and a place where you always leave with the taste of the sea on your lips and skin,” she says.

The process from conception to inception of Wood Sage and Sea Salt took Roux and master perfumer Christine Nagel more than 21⁄2 years to perfect.

It wasn’t until the final product was being poured into cologne bottles, candle jars and body crème containers that they realised they had replaced floral notes – perfume’s trademark ingredients – with rare scents including a mineral accord, natural plum extractions and red algae.

“We didn’t see a flower when we went to the coast so we worked hard and now we have shown that it is possible to create a fragrance that is feminine without using a flower,” Roux says.

The result is a fragrance that can be used to create 26 other scent combinations when layered with best sellers such as Lime Basil and Mandarin, and English Pear and Freesia.

The dry and cool Wood Sage and Sea Salt is set to become the martini of the perfume sector – an alternative and versatile scent that both the Don Drapers and Peggy Olsons of the world can wear in the boardroom and then to the beach.

Wood Sage and Sea Salt collection: from $90 for 30ml cologne; from Jo Malone London stores and David Jones counters now.

The writer travelled to London as a guest of Jo Malone London. Jo Malone London’s cologne, candle jars and body crème.