Against Idleness and Mischief

[reconditarmonia]

Pollen-dusted honey, diligent tonka, steadfast chamomile, and goodly hyssop.

This smells like sunshine on me. I'm not much for the images, beyond color, but this is like sitting in a field of yellow flowers. Floral honey with tonka to ground it.

edit: when I talk about my perfume, I've come to refer to this as the "happy bees" scent. Edited July 15, 2011 by reconditarmonia

[Hetaira]

In the Bottle – very strong, sweet chamomile tea with an astringent green note that must be the hyssop

 

Wet on Skin – golden honey, studded with chamomile blossoms, mingled with the green hyssop. It must be the tonka that rounds out the blend and gives it depth. Taken together, it reminds me a bit of honeysuckle nectar straight from the flower.

 

First Impressions – Above all this scent encourages a feeling of wholesome rightness. It is a warm, purposeful, guileless, healing, solar-oriented blend. It inspires a confidence that comes when you know you are part of something larger than yourself, well-connected and well-supported.

 

Mid-Dry – the honey’s sweetness becomes more subdued and I can definitely smell the pollen dust that gives the scent a hazy golden halo

 

Drydown – as the pollen settles on the honey, this scent fades into a gentle, comforting murmur like singing bees content in their hive

 

The Fella Says – (I didn’t get the chance to ask his opinion before I ran out the door this morning)

 

The Verdict –

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

~Antonio Machado, trans. Robert Bly

 

“Against Idleness and Mischief” makes the same redemptive “white combs and sweet honey” as the dream-bees in Antonio Machado’s beautiful poem. The scent, like the poem and the purposeful purity of the bees themselves, assures the wounded spirit that all is well in the hive and in the world, and that work done with joy for it’s own sake is a healing act. This is a scent I will turn to when I need that reminder. With it’s low throw and steadfast endurance, this is a personal scent for a personal sentiment. I could also see using it in a diffuser as a room-scent. I'd love for my home to smell like a walled garden apiary flooded with sunshine and good grace.

 

Big Bottle Purchase? Yes, I know I’ll go through the imp very quickly.

 

Rating – 10.

 

[Suusje]

This is just straight up chamomile on me. I really wanted the honey and tonka to show up, but sadly, they're not here.

[aquazoo]

A definite dripping feel to it. Abundance. The honey is coming through, and the chamomile sits nicely on top.

 

[meredevachon]

In the imp: Very very faint, just the slightest bit of something herbal.

 

Wet: Clean, green herbal + sweet sweet honey. With more throw than I'd expect. Or rather, I notice it wafting sooner than I usually do with bpal.

 

Dry down: The herbal scent becomes more obviously chamomile, with just a tiny spike of something extra that I'm assuming is the hyssop. But honey is front and center, in a jar still in the comb, with chamomile tea steeping at the other end of the table. The throw decreases, not wafting as far or as strongly as the oil dries.

 

Dry: I've never tried honey powder, but I imagine this is what I'd smell like if I did. Sweet and actually kind of sexy.

 

Overall: I'm going to have to think on this one. I got it because I wanted a good honey scent (and tonka is always a good thing), but I still need to decide if it's too sweet for me.

[Venneh]

In the imp, I'm getting honey and chamomile, along with a touch of what's either tonka or hyssop, can't quite tell. On my skin, honey and chamomile, and honestly, very similar to Door, only without the note that makes Door so wonderful, and fading a bit quickly. Basically ends up being Door but without the deeper note that makes me love Door so much, so, pass.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Venneh

[grrrlennyl]

Against Idleness and Mischief

 

On: Mostly honey and chamomile. Staid, but pretty.

Half an hour in: Still honey and chamomile, but with some licorice from the hyssop.

1 hour in: The hyssop is amping up a lot on me, which is just fine by me. It smells lovely.

1.5 hours in: Very pretty. Sweet and vaguely licorice-y.

4.5 hours in: Faint. Floral.

5 hours in: Pretty much gone.

Overall: I love chamomile, so I was hoping this would be better on me.

[cupcakegernade]

This smells just like chamomile tea with honey, light and sweet. The tonka gives a nice creamy touch. I really like this, it is quite soothing. I am not detecting any hyssop, but hopefully it will join the party soon.

[ih8perfume]

This has a very odd smell on me. Husband says it smells like honey, but that he doesn't like it.

 

I can't really place it. Very grating, scratchy smell. The chamomile, which I normally love turns all diaper-y on me, and it begins to put off a scent like terrible body odor. I thought I would really like this, but I think the honey doesn't work on me.

 

ADDED Jan. 21:

 

EDIT: I'm not sure what happened aside from maybe my nose just didn't know how to interpret this scent the first time I wore it. I do still get the vaseline/mineral oil smell when wet, but as it dries, there is a warm, powdery herbal quality with a hit of almost menthol coolness from the Hyssop. I don't know how I managed to do 2 reviews.

 

Unfortunately, this scent didn't work for me at all and I am really dissappointed. About 1/2 of my imp purchases this time around contain a honey note and none of them worked very well for the same reason, so I assume it is the honey. * Me with big pouty lip *

 

I love honey. I love chamomile. I love tonka. I'm not familiar with hyssop, but I love anise and fennel and other similar liquorice/herbal scents.

 

The honey comes through as this scratchy throat irritant to me. The chamomile turned into the smell of unused diapers (but diapers nonetheless), and I don't particularly smell much else because the scratchy irritation drowns out everything. I asked Husband "What do you think?". He said (and I quote) "Honey. But I don't like it". Honey has the most complex sweet warm floral goopiness when I smell it from the jar and the honey in this and other blends had nothing like it on my skin. And having smelled the wild chamomile that grew in my yard in Colorado, I get none of the pineapple-y herbal astringency from the chamomile, just a dull commercial generic baby product smell.

 

After I've had it on for 10 minutes or so, I start to get this AWFUL stale body odor mixed with Vaseline scent. I haven't gotten that from any of the other scents with honey, so not sure where that comes from. It fades within a few minutes, but, YUCK. And B.O. isn't a smell that necessarily disgusts me.

 

I've tried it 3 times and keep getting the same reaction so I guess I'm not going to change my mind. Although I will try it once more since I usually require some time to assimilate a new scent before I can decide whether or not I like it, I just don't think it's going to work. BUMMER.

Edited March 25, 2011 by Shollin

[AnyseLawsBray]

In vial: Sharply poignant, reminiscent of a late spring afternoon, shining with ambient sweetness.

Wet on skin: Drifting waves of pollen, fuzzy hyssop stalks, warmed tree branches.

Dry: A delicious pale wild honey and a deeper sense of pollen- not in a sneezy way, but more a smooth, powdery way.

 

Verdict: Sweet & reliably lovely for the days I need to feel that way. The way it fades into simply honey & pollen is wonderful.

Edited March 22, 2011 by anyseka

[melrose]

Sweet, powdery, pleasant, faint. Eh.

[filigree_shadow]

Powdery honey, with a faint and very mild and pleasant herby note (chamomile?).

 

I have problems with some honey notes smelling like play-doh on me, and this one doesn't. This smells great. Really like this one.

[mari4212]

Oh, this is lovely.

 

In the imp, there's honey, with a sharpness that I think is the chamomile.

 

On me, the honey is dominant, with just a hint of herbal undertones. It's lighter and more innocent than O, good for summer days. A very soft and golden scent.

[mxtine]

I'm trying to work on my spreadsheet and noticed I never reviewed this.

 

Golden honey and pollen. Some weak chamomile, which is good because the chamomile in Cheshire Cat did not work for me. This is sweet but light and clean.

[calivianya]

I get mainly waxy honey and chamomile from this blend. I'm glad someone else mentioned Door, because I notice the comparison too. This is Door with the oomph. This is lighter and not as grounded. Overall, it is pretty and relaxing, but it is too similar to Door to keep both and Door is the much better scent, so I will let my imp go.

[teamilk]

Warning: the label washed off this imp when I tossed it into the washing machine. I am about 98.9% sure this is Against Idleness and Mischief based on my sniffer and knowledge of notes.

 

This is an absolutely beautiful blend on me! The honey sweet, not rich and dark, and the tonka bean does a wonderful job anchoring the blend. Generally, this is one of those perfumes that I can pick out specific notes when I want to, but other times, I can just let it blend into something beautiful to my nose. It's not like a lot of other honey blends I've smelled: there's nothing overtly sexual about it in the very least. It's definitely more of a worker bee honey, rather than a luring in the bears honey.

 

Will definitely be purchasing a big bottle. It is literally the most perfect warm, beautiful sunny weekend day scent I've come across.

[b.a. grimoire]

Chamomile tea with honey, as everyone has noted, but it's also what I think of as a "powdery" scent. Don't know what it is that does it, but it feels that way to me, and I love it! Very feminine, very sweet, somehow slightly dark. Right up my alley.

[theseagrows]

i'm not really sure what prompted me to try this, since BPAL's honey note turns straw-like on me, but here it is. the honey is straw-like here, but because of the other notes, it is not as bothersome as usual, and is more of an asset. at first i definitely smell mostly chamomile and honey with the tonka underlying, giving a pretty warmth and depth. this scent is very golden, but not in a musky way, it's nice, just not sure i would wear it much.

[aphrodite]

I don't know if I would've ever thought to order this scent, but it came as a free imp. I'm surprised by how it smells — just chocolatey — and even more surprised by how much I like it. It's something I can wear often yet I think it stands out on my skin. It's not sweet like sugar, it's sweet like deep vanilla bean. If you've ever used Bed Head's Chocolate Head hair treatment, it reminds me exactly of the way your hair smells after that.

[Incendiare]

Warm, honeyed chamomile in the imp. Wet, it turns into a soap monster. I mean, it still smells good. Like good soap. But soap nonetheless. But wait, there's more! After minutes, this has blossomed into a sweet, gentle floral. Not like chamomile. It's beautiful. It seems to have stabilized as this pleasantly gentle, sweetened airy floral because it's been twenty minutes and nothing has changed since then. This gets a gold star in my books.

[lohengrin]

In the imp: Mostly herbal, with a hint of honey sweetness.

 

On skin, wet: Pretty much the same as in the imp.

 

On skin, dry: Honey, a bit of tonka, and just the faintest hints of the herbs.

 

After an hour: Way too similar to O. The herbs just don't last, and it turns into straight up honey and tonka.

[ChloeKEvil]

This is very light and sweet and hazy-gold. I can definitely smell the hyssop, chamomile, and honey- especially the hyssop, which is the strongest note on me. I don't mind, though it puts me in mind of a lighter Anubis. Which is great, since I like Anubis but can't bring myself to wear it.

 

Very calm and soothing scent, which is unsurprising from the chamomile. Makes me want to rhyme things with 'azy': hazy, lazy, daisy... mmm.

[sessile]

on me, wet, is honestly terrible. the honey/tonka combination, which sounded like a good idea at the time, is just awful and overwhelming.

 

eventually, it does calm down to let the chamomile/hyssop out, sweetened by the honey. which is fine, i suppose. it's not for me, unfortunately.

Edited April 4, 2012 by sessile

[becca_s]

I get honey and chamomile from this. It starts out with mostly honey but the chamomile comes out more as it dries. It starts to smell quite herbal after a while. On the dry down it becomes a clean, green scent with a hint of honey. It's quite refreshing but starts to become powdery and fades quite quickly on me.

Edited May 18, 2012 by becca_s

[ACVail24]

Frimp Test

 

To me, this smells like the lavendar honey cheesecake of Beaver Moon of 2011, minus the lavendar.

it's got the same honey note, delicate & sweet, mixed with something slightly creamy & a touch of something slightly musky & sweet too.

 

If I ever run out of Beaver Moon 2011, I am replacing it with this