As I mentioned when I reviewed White Musk Libertine back in 2011, The Body Shop is one of my favorite hunting-grounds for cheap thrill fragrances at the mall. L'Occitane has pretty much priced themselves out of the cheap thrills category altogether, and it's been a long time since I liked anything at Bath & Body Works. Lush is always worth a stop assuming you can handle the olfactory overload, but my local store rarely has more than a fraction of their fragrance line.
The Body Shop is iffy, mind you. I don't like everything they make. You don't run to the Body Shop because of the high quality ingredients, much less the daring compositions — you won't find anything like Lush's The Voice of Reason at The Body Shop. But hey, if you do like something at The Body Shop, and you get there on one of their frequent sales days, you might just walk out with 30 ml of something for less than $10.
Honeymania, their latest, is a case in point. At its full retail price of $14, it isn't the sort of expenditure likely to require weeks of advance budgeting, but The Body Shop is willing to go even cheaper: last week you could take home a bottle for $7. Yes, I bit. Even at $7, unfortunately, it was a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping for honey, and plenty of it — maybe not so uncompromising as Serge Lutens Miel de Bois, perhaps, but still, honey, and not just in the name, á la Marc Jacobs Honey. Maybe something along the lines of MAC Naked Honey (why does MAC keep reissuing Turquatic instead of Naked Honey?) or one of the L'Occitane honey scents...
And there is honey, mind you, but Honeymania is mostly a light, honey-inflected floral, which is, in all fairness, pretty much exactly how it's described at The Body Shop. It's very sweet (and a tiny bit loud) early on, but that doesn't last long. It gets drier and softer as it calms on skin, and it smells vaguely like wildflowers, albeit in a very clean and smoothed over and "straight from the lab" sort of way. As it continues to dry down, it gets a bit warmer and a bit deeper, and the honey comes more into focus, but it never gets as warm or deep as I'd like, and it also gets oddly flat after about 30 minutes. I did not try any of the body products, but a commenter mentioned that the body butter is a "truer honey", so now I wish I'd bought that instead.
Verdict: even at $7, a bit of a dud for me — I really doubt I will reach for my bottle ever again. It doesn't smell bad, not at all, but it isn't terribly enticing either. Props to The Body Shop all the same, for keeping prices low, for using Community Fair Trade honey, and for making everything in small sizes.
Do comment if you tried it, or to tell us your favorite honey fragrance. Mine is still the much-maligned Miel de Bois, which yes, is best not smelled for a good 20 minutes or so after application. Apply, clip your nose, wait.
The Body Shop Honeymania is available in 30 ml Eau de Toilette ($14) and in matching bath & body products ($6-20).
Favorite honey scent is Acqua di Miele by Fresh (probably d/c at this point). It’s wispy and non-cloying…have a feeling the SL would be too much for me. Don’t have a Body Shop close by anymore, but their body butters are effective.
Pretty sure I never smelled that one, but the SL is very much at the opposite end of the spectrum. Lots of people thought it smelled like cat pee.
I know Luca Turin mentioned something about honey notes; basically it was that phenylacetic acid, used to create the honey accord, can work when used in extremely small doses but most people will instead smell urine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylacetic_acid Hope the wiki link is ok.
Thanks for the link! Unfortunately it doesn’t say much about why it will smell like cat pee to one person and honey to another in the same dosage. Instead it suggests that large amounts will smell like pee – presumably to everyone.
Well, seriously, the opening of Miel de Bois just smells bad, whatever you call it.
The thing is that if its a matter of skin chemistry then it is possible to tell – this smells good on me, my skin doesn’t bring out the offensive facet. The same with grapefruit scents. It would be possible to tell how you will smell to others. If its a matter of perception then its just safer not to wear such a fragrance in public; unless you don’t mind smelling like cat-pee to a certain unknown segment of the population.
I got a sample of Acqua Allegoria Pamplelune and when I put it on my thought was actually “oh no Bella peed in my room” and looked around. It didn’t even occur to me that it might be the perfume even though I started smelling it as soon as I put the perfume on.
Miel de Bois smells exactly like ferret to me.
Yeah, this one was a disappointment for me. When something is named “Honeymania” I expect it to be chock full of honey. Instead it was an unremarkable floral with a tinge of honey (and I really had to sniff to get that). 🙁
It’s too bad. I would not mind if it cost double if it was better…L’Occitane is too expensive, TBS is too cheap. We need some middle ground. Perhaps that’s what Lush is, but their distribution is too spotty.
I meant to say, for a better variation on the theme of wildflowers and honey, I liked Library of Flowers “Honeycomb.”
My cat smells like honey. I’ve heard of complaints that honey in perfume/fragranced products can smell like cat pee but I have never heard of the reverse. She’s definitely not getting into honey, seeing as this is not Winnie the Poo and there aren’t vats of honey around. So when I saw this it made me think of my elderly cat and I’m kind of put off by it.
Sorry!
I rarely ever go to the Body Shop.. not entirely sure if there is still one around, but I’m curious so if I come across this I’ll probably try it out. I haven’t tried Miel de Bois. I’m curious about it but haven’t gotten around to getting a sample. For honey my favorites are Ginestet Botrytis or DSH Mahjoun (which is really similar to Botrytis, but maybe a little heavier).
Mahjoun is a great scent. Not sure why I didn’t love Botrytis, but I didn’t.
Ha…but did not mean by that to imply that Botrytis was not a great scent — I know lots of people love it!
I’m a fan!
Unfortunately it only seems available on American websites. I couldn’t even find a place in Paris to buy it when I had a friend going there, and did some research.
How odd. Hope it is not discontinued.
Our branch did not get the EDT but I did go in and sniff the body products. I’m always tempted by specials and it was half off for that one day, but since i couldn’t smell honey, all the temptation dissipated!
Oh, even in the shea butter? That’s too bad.
I think it was the butter that I smelled, but I could be wrong…And there may have been a honey facet but it just wasn’t the warm cosy honey I was expecting – the dominant smell wasn’t honey at all.
Body shop stuff is often quite true to the name – Papaya BB smells like papaya on steroids, for instance, so i was expecting a more or less straight honey scent.
Thanks!
I really love honey notes in perfume.
I especially love them together with floral notes…like in amoureuse or 31 rue cambon.
I also dig the honeyed leather genre: Cuir ottoman springs to mind!
Alas, I’ve never smelled a honey-centered fragrance – they are hard to come by!!! I’ll give a try to this body shop version, though I fear I won’t find my honey fix there!!
If I owned a perfume house, I’d put a honey accord everywhere: my affectionate customers would call it the zazienade….;)
Hey, I will vote for zaziezade!
I had a very similar experience recently with a much marked down tube of Burt’s Bees Milk & Honey lotion. Except I make myself use it. I am constitutionally incapable of letting a mistake purchase languish… I just grit my teeth and smear it on… hoping the next time I reach for it, it will be empty. The BB Milk & Honey lotion has honey, but other scents as well, maybe coconut and banana, which don’t work for me.
Ugh. Funny thing but I probably let fragrances languish more than body products, even though they cost more.
Yes, I found BB’s milk & honey lotion to be a bit lacking in the honey department, and not tremendously moisturising either.
I get a lot of honey from Lush Lust.
Interesting — I’ll take your word for it. All I remember is sweet jasmine.
I’ve been wearing Botrytis for the last few weeks. I love it. To me, it really smells exactly like honey, warm and rich and sweet. I also like the now-discontinued L’Occitane Miel et Citron, though that is spicier. Never been brave enough to try SL Miel de Bois. His scents tend to be a bit loud on me, and the thought of smelling loudly like cat pee just wasn’t very enticing. 😉
I do love Miel de Bois, but it’s surprising that anybody makes it and sells it.
I had a Honeymania blind-sweep at those discount days and got myself a Body wash, EdT, lip balm and Body butter.
The Body butter actually, against all the bland floral products in the line DOES SMELL of honey! Although not as “animalistic, rich, warm and decadent” like L’oocitane but is worthy of a cheap thrill. 🙂
Good thanks! I will try it next time I’m in the mall.
When I sampled Soir de Lune by Sisley it smelled strongly of honey on me. I like it, but Sisley’s fragrances can get kind of pricey too… I also like the honey in Tea for Two by L’Artisan.
I don’t recall honey in Tea for Two. But luckily I got a decant a bit ago so I can closely examine in soon.
Thanks!
Well, that’s a disappointment, but I’ll still give it a go. I’m in Australia and Honeymania has not hit our shores yet, tho’ I’ve been keeping an eye out.
I have high hopes of the Body Butter too, as TBS’s body butters are so good. My daughter buys me body products from their moringa range and the body butter is VERY strong. The other day when I was in TBS I spritzed the moringa perfume and found it flat and shortlived compared to the butter, and showed no development.
Favourite honey perfumes are Elie Saab EDP and Guerlain’s AA Flora Nymphea. These are orange blossom perfumes too, of course. The honey in ES is light and juicy, in Flora Nymphea it is darker and almost chewy.
I love the honey and orange blossom combo. I even add a drop of orange flower water to the honey on my toast!
Oh, do give it a shot, maybe you’ll like it way better than I do. I like their body butters too, although I never seem to use them up before they go bad — I was glad when they started offering those in smaller sizes too.
I too thought it was a dud, next, lol.
I like many honey scents. Lady Million, Back to Black, Botrytis to name a few off the top.
I am still hopeful for the White Musk Smoky Rose thing.
How disappointing! The Body Shop has a very generous return policy – if you have the receipt, you can return even used items anytime and get what you paid for back; if you don’t have a receipt, you get back whatever the selling price is at the time of return so theoretically, you can get back double what you paid for it 🙂
As to my favorite honey fragrance, I would go with Viktoria Minya.
Do they, even with fragrance? Honestly don’t think I’ve ever returned a fragrance. For some reason I would feel bad about it, given that I bought it unsniffed.
I really liked L’Occitane’s now discontinued Honey Gentle Water. The Honeymania body wash and Sweet Lemon body wash work well together (honey and lemon — yum). I’ve been combining them during my morning showers, and it’s quite nice. The Honeymania EDT did not have enough honey in it for me, but that wasn’t a surprise. I don’t know what “wildflowers” are supposed to smell like, but the flowers in the EDT came across as very warm and sweet and perhaps like white flowers (with no indoles, which is just fine by me). I might pick up a bottle of it for seven bucks, but I’m not in a hurry.
Oh, and I enjoy the honey note in Jacomo 08.
The reason I said that I don’t know what “wildflowers” are supposed to smell like is that Fragrantica lists “wildflowers” as a note in Honeymania (it was not because you used the term, Robin; I was not trying to be rude:-) )
Oh, it was not rude at all, no worries!
That L’Occitane was very popular around here, shame they stopped making it.
Lollia Relax is my go-to honey scent. However. I will eventually own Botrytis and Golden Cattelya as well
I will have to see if I can find a tester of the Lollia at Anthropologie.
I’m in late, but I really love a Sweet Anthem perfume called Nicolette that’s a orange blossom-honey mix. Amazing.
I also like Back to Black which is very honey on me.
I’ve been testing Parfums Del Rae Amoureuse as well and it’s up there too.
Amoureuse is a great scent. I should try the Sweet Anthem, I do like orange blossom and honey.
I’m also in late, but had to write that I just realized that Sweet Anthem is practically in my back yard! I cannot wait to head over for a little visit!
Boadicea the Victorious’ ‘Intense’ is all honey to me – deliciously so. And Xerjoff’s ‘Mamluk’ is honey and caramel – I have some on my arm now. I smell like a delicious corner of the pastry chef’s kitchen. 🙂
Nice!
Too bad about the Honeymania. I, too, was hoping for something along the lines of MAC Africanimal or Wild Honey, which ever of the two was more honey and less floral since I don’t remember which I have, only that I love all the honey in it and really should pick up another bottle.
The same thing happened when I ordered a Chocomania set online as there isn’t a TBS in my area. When I opened the lotion for a sniff (it wasn’t bundled with the other products) I got cocoa powder dusted over sweet green florals. Nothing “mania” about it unless confusion counts as a sort of mania. I was disappointed and am going to probably sell or swap the lot since I likely wouldn’t get past the green/floral notes and use anything in it.
For honey, I love BK’s Back to Black, Miel de Bois, L’Occitane’s Wild Honey & Vanilla (that one was a blink and you miss it release) and Botrytis. Also, which ever MAC I have, which wears more like a honey/chypre blend and is just gorgeous. Mor has a really nice honey lotion that moisturizes well and sticks pretty close to the honey fragrance though I detect perhaps a wee bit of brown sugar in there, too.
It would be great if Pacifica came out with a honey scent. I imagine they’d do a fine job. I’m also having an inner struggle about testing out a Kardashian fragrance since I think the latest is supposed to be a blend of rose and honey.
Oh, Pacifica really should, good call.
I”m still boycotting Body Shop (not that they have any stores near me anymore)….they used to sell a musk oil called “Wood Musk” – (not White Musk). And they discontinued it. I bought up every vial I could back in the mid 90s, and I have written them asking them to start up production again. They never come through.
Sorry!
I like Love + Toast’s Honey Coconut perfume, but it might be too sugary for some – I like my fragrances really sweet!
Didn’t even know they made that one, thanks!
My favorite honey scent at the moment is Honey by Library of Flowers. I do enjoy this honey by the Body Shop. It is best used as a body cream. Unfortunately I stopped using their products because many of them contain parbens.