Black Hellebore Honey

[Gwydion]

Black hellebore honey.

In bottle: It’s a soft, yet sharp floral over honey. The effect is rather like cool tiile and dried flowers in a guest bathroom. Wet: Much more interesting. It is sharp and crisp and vaguely bitter berry/crushed plant. This is bright and scinilatting and utterly unlike it is in the bottle. In distinctly garden, but though it’s got a floreal element, I wouldn’t class it as floral. It’s more whole plant, freshly cut. I am really likeling this. The throw is excellent. Dry: It goes a touch flowery and is more floral on the dry down, but it’s still quietly lovely.

[Iceblink]

Hard to describe! I'm not a fan of Black Hellebore on its own; it's far too herbal for me, but I don't get much of an herbal note from this, although there is a green-ness about it. It dries down to something a bit like...soapy O. A little floral, a lot of honey...and that green note is probably what's turning to soap. I still like it better than plain Black Hellebore, though.

[Heavenlyrabbit]

This smells like Mint/Rose/Honey

[angelicruin]

This goes minty on me too. Mint + honey smell very weird on my skin.

[Mountaingrrl00]

It's almost single-note honey on me, a sweet but sharp honey with just a hint of something dark and herbal underneath. It hardly morphs at all, and lasts a long time. This would be good for layering, I think.

[talula_fairie]

This smells like O with herbs and a light floral note. It's a hard one to describe. Very strong on the honey, which I love. Must have a bottle!!!

 

ETA: I am fairly certain there is not rose in it as a previous reviewer suspected. I can smell rose a mile away, and my skin amps it to high heaven. If it was in this blend, I would know, and likely be whining about it. But, anything's possible...

Edited September 13, 2010 by talula_fairie

[Little Bird]

My first thought was that this smells like powdery spearmint and sweet honey on me. It has a soft, natural smell to it that makes me think of fuzzy mint leaves. It doesn't sound bad, yet it has a quality to it that's rather awful on me. It makes me think of the way that rest area bathrooms smell and more of a dentist office's smell in the drydown (sickly sweet, disinfectant cleanser, maybe). It goes more powdery in the drydown as well. The overall feel is just not good at all to me.

[zankoku_zen]

Honey with fuzzy mint leaves. There something on the drydown, like dried herbs underneath the honey that give it a bit of an edge.

 

Dark, sticky, honey.

[Ajila]

In the bottle - A very herbal honey, like some sort of medicinal sweet

 

Wet on me - The honey takes on a waxy almost candle-like aspect with an underlying sappy green note

 

Dry on me - A soft, delicate, candied herbal scent

 

Overall - Pretty, but it doesn't really grab me

Edited October 31, 2010 by Ajila

[crebbsgirl]

Sweet honey with an herbal mint undertone. This smells like the same honey from O on my skin. The herbs prevent this from going too sweet.

[aquazoo]

Oddly enough it starts with Coke — cola and sweet. Much as I love honey scents, this one is not doing it for me.

[hkhm]

imp: floral honey.

 

wet: very delicate honey, with that same fizzy cola note from christmas rose.

 

dry: this dries to a sweet, herbal honey scent.

[grrrlennyl]

Black Hellebore Honey

 

On: Herbal honey with a bit of a cool, minty edge.

1 hour in: Light honey with a woody note, and still that bit of mint.

2 hours in: Mostly a woodsy honey.

3.3 hours in: A lovely, powdery honey.

5 hours in: Powdery honey.

[yakiguri]

Wet: Sweet honey with an herbal, slightly purple-berry note. I like it, though I don't get the floral/mint note others have mentioned.

 

Dry: Straight sweet honey. Whatever berry note I sniffed has been drowned out by the honey. I'm pretty sure at this point I amp honey.

[Schmoozy]

Herbal, medicinal honey with hints of greenery and mint. The mint doesn't last long and what's left is a herbal honey with greenery.

[whitsunweddings]

In the imp: Sort of like medicinal honey?

Wet: Weirdly like fresh feijoa.

Dry: I get that it's mint and honey - like I can smell the seperate notes - but it really just smells like feijoa. Which isn't a bad thing at all - I used to rub feijoa juice on my wrists to make 'perfume' when I was little.

Half an hour later: Minty honey. Kinda musty

Two hours later: Mint and mustiness both gone. Now it's just a generic powdery honey scent.

[mymymai]

In the Imp (ITI): Sweet, cloying honey is the only thing I can smell in the imp.

 

Wet: Even sweeter still? How is that possible?There is a touch of something wicked underneath, but the smell of the honey isn’t making me feel too well.

 

Dry: Honey with a darker tinge too it, reminiscent of dried nettle.

[lohengrin]

In the imp: Herbal, a bit sharp, maybe a tiny bit minty, and not at all sweet.

 

On skin, wet: Still strongly herbal, but now there's some honey peeking out too.

 

On skin, dry: Now it's very definitely honey first, with an herbal undertone.

 

After an hour: Pretty similar to the initial drydown. It's almost musky, in that particular way some honeys can be, but still herbal as well. It's... nice. But it doesn't really grab me.

[neuilly]

There's a very medicinal element to this - I think it's like honey cough drops. I love honey, but not like this.

[hecate_jones]

In the imp: honey, honey, honey... and ooh a minty herbal?

Wet on skin: Ugh! Sharp medicinal mint and bitter herbs.

Dry: oooooh, honey! Dark honey, honey with an edge to it.

 

I really don't seem to get any floral from it at all, and the mintiness/herbal quality literally disappeared on drydown, but my skin does amp anything 'sweet', so soeone else's mileage may vary.

 

This is a must have a bottle scent, because I think it'll layer beautifully with anything that needs a little more honey.

[miss_rynn]

I got this as a frimp in one of my recent orders, but I avoided trying it until now because of the disappointment I felt with Choke Cherry Honey. This is sweet, to be sure, but it's a light and bright sweetness rather than a heavy, sickly sweetness. It's obviously a honey scent, but there is a green component to it, something like crushed leaves and stems rather than herbal. I'm getting some weird scent memory of this that I can't pin down, but I have dim memories of one of the tropical islands I visited as a child, but also as a spa-like beauty treatment. Maybe somewhere between a fancy sun screen lotion and a botanical moisturiser? I know that sounds odd, but it has that fresh and clean but also sweet feel to it. There is a faintly bitter undertone that acts to ground it. This is seriously impressing to me, and despite my bad reaction to Choke Cherry Honey I think I'll look more into the honey series.

[lookingglass]

At first I smell something bitter and earthy, drying down quickly to a crush of herbs and green, fresh honey. Then it totally morphs into a scent that reminds me of childood: my gramdmothers's clothes! She always used Downey fabric softener and wore sweet, musky perfumes and powders (Shalimar, Chantilly, Cody Wild Musk, Tea Rose), that melded into a scent that was just HER... here, her arms a full of the pale pink and white peonies that she proudly raised in the rich earth of her back garden. I ran and played in that garden...I felt happy and free in my white lace dressses and sturdy brown shoes. I can burry my face, even now, in those giant blooms, her soft, loving embrace all around. She's been dead for years...this is like a resurection stone of scent for me. Oh, thank you, Labbies! I want to go try straight up Black Hellebore now! I'd been craving a peony scent that matched my darker sensibilites! This is more than I could have asked for...

Edited December 19, 2013 by lookingglass

[Deliciousness]

On application this is a wonderful fresh green honey. There is something that reminds me of fresh cut grass and a light airy floral. I'm not talking about the dry powder I can get from some blends, but a fresh, live floral. Alas, this stage is short lived, as this mellows into a honey with a backdrop of the aforementioned powdery floral - not bad, just not as nice as the wet stage, IMO. Anyway, the throw is minimal, this scent stays close to your skin. It does fade after application, but not too badly. I kept getting little wisps of scent throughout the day. It's a nice scent, but I really adored the wet stage.

[alyelle]

Imp: A dark, spicy herbaceous scent, with barely any honey at all. I quite like it!

 

Wet: Sharp, yes, but not herbal or bitter; somehow sharp and powdery at the same time and pierces right through to hit me in the temple. This might be one of those unfortunate scents that trigger my headaches.

 

Dry: A cool, white floral with powdery overtones. It reminds me rather a lot of magnolia blossom.

 

This smells nothing at all like I'd have expected it to from the imp. The end result on me is basically the polar opposite of the oil, and that's rather disappointing - I love the scent of it unapplied. The final stages aren't bad, though I'd have to try it again to work out whether I like them enough to sit through the almost-headache-inducing stage of wet to dry. The throw's pretty good, I definitely only need a small amount. ★: 2.5, pending another test.

[freyasfae]

Aw, man, this gets medicinal honey on me - like honey cough drops. I much prefer Deadly Nightshade Honey for a poisonous honey.