Hemlock Honey

[Psypomp]

Hemlock honey.

Having never smelled hemlock, I can only assume it is the herbal undertone to this otherwise extreme honey scent. Not to say this isn't lovely (because it is), but I am really only getting these two primary notes. I'm not getting the musky scent that others have encountered. It lacks complexity, to me.

[Helas]

This was an extremely generous free bottle from the Lab.

 

I would never have chosen it for myself, but I love it. Sweet, sensuous honey that does not go powdery, with a shadowy herbal undertone. The mood it evokes is like wandering in some dark, gloomy vegetal bower, with the scent of growing plants and feral sexuality in the background.

 

It is somewhat similar to Tombeur, but lacks the woods, sharp lavender note, and complexity of Tombeur. As a result, it feels rawer, less sophisticated, but more primal and closer to nature. I definitely have room for both scents in my collection.

[calivianya]

I received a tester of this as a freebie from a generous forumite! In my review of Hemlock, I wrote that it would need a sweetener for it to work on me. Well, let's see if honey is the sweetener I was looking for.

 

Wet on my skin, this is a very green, bitter honey. I'm definitely getting the pine-y smell I associated with Hemlock from this blend, but it is about 50/50 honey/hemlock on my skin right now. Sometimes honey goes a little bit play-doh on my skin, and that happens here. Fortunately, the play-doh honey doesn't stay play-doh for long - the hemlock makes a strong resurgence and the blend becomes mostly hemlock with a teensy bit of powdery honey in the background. I'm kind of digging this right now. I'm not sure that I'd want a bottle of it, but it's going to need a re-test, and maybe a deathmatch against The Illustrated Woman, before I make up my mind. I think those two are going to be incredibly similar on my skin, and I already have a bottle of The Illustrated Woman that I barely wear.

[Gin]

So, there's honey obviously. The hemlock bit smells green and cypressy? Not my style.

[KittyHawk]

My very first of the apiary scents!

 

Hmmm, this is much closer to a single note honey than I expected; there's a very slight herbal undertone in the imp and wet, but once it's been on my skin for a few minutes, it disappears. The honey actually gets a little powdery, which is a first for me, so all in all Hemlock Honey is just pleasant, not spectacular. With a bit more complexity, I could see this being amazing (I assume Cleopatra Testing Poisons is likely similar in feel to this, only more interesting). I'll hold onto my imp to see if it morphs any with a little age.

Edited July 12, 2012 by KittyHawk

[ami226]

On the skin: That is some yummy honey! There is definitely a slight bit of greenness here for the hemlock, but at first all I can smell is the honey.

 

A bit later and the greenness/slight woodiness is blooming quite a bit more. It's taking on a bit of an herbal edge. Smells like some refreshing honey drink now.

 

Not one of my favorites, but it is interesting.

[BrieCS]

I got a small imp of this from a friend, and it's like pure crack to me.

 

It's got this kind of spiced honey scent. I like the greenish, woodsy smell mixed in with the sweet honey. I agree with paperrose that there's a little bit of pine at the start, and I TOTALLY get the sexy vibe. Man, I feel sexy when I wear it - and there are few scents that can do it. It's like the anti-musk for me - deep and witchy. Love it!

[MtMoonKitty]

I bought a bottle of Hemlock Honey because my friend was awesome enough to trade me her imp. It was aged, I assume and smelled mostly honey. In fact, I thought all honey. But, I loved it which is why I now own a bottle.

 

So fresh from the lab:

 

In the bottle: mostly honey and a tint of something green I don't associate with hemlock yet.

 

~I should say that I have an affinity for the hemlock plant. It grows all over here in the ditches near water. I often pick the greenery for decorative and magickal uses. Its poisonous, which for some reason makes it particularly interesting to me. So, I am very familiar with its scent.~

 

Wet on my skin: Oh! There is the hemlock! Slightly similar to prairie sage. It is not overpowering and the honey is still the main focus.

 

Dry down: A lovely, bright and fresh honey. It smells so good I can almost taste it.

 

Hemlock Honey is my main go-to fragrance. I find that it layers well with many of my other BPAL scents and some of the other foo-foo things I am fond of. This is also my favorite to put on after my evening shower. It is comforting and sensual both, so it is condusive to getting frisky or falling asleep. Its the only one in my collection that is hubby approved. Not that he hates the others, but he always notices when I wear HH.

[JazzieCazzie]

Working my way through all of my scents, old and new. This was frimped to me by the Lab during a recent impapalooza purchase ... and all I can say is OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.

 

IN THE IMP: Strong honey with a slightly green twist lurking below that I can't put my finger on.

 

Dabbed on one wrist and crook of an arm.

 

WET: Absolutely delicious. Sweet, sweet, sweet honey but with that slight medicinal/green/resiny hint that offsets it JUST enough to keep it from being TOO sweet. And I happen to LOVE "medicinal" when its resiny though I hate it when it's fruity.

 

DRYDOWN: There is a ton of throw with this scent and it is blissful. The drydown is just as spectacularly deliciously sweet as the wet scent.

 

OVERALL: This is an ABSOLUTE big bottle purchase, no doubt about it. I am so grateful to the Lab for frimping me with it because I don't think it would have ever occurred to me to buy it on my own.

 

On a scale of 1-5, absolutely a 5.

[lookingglass]

First on, there's a medicinal blast, that quickly morphs into a bittersweet evergreen note. The honey, though, absolutely dominates, and it dries down to a skin-hugging green, yet sweet, honey. It smells like I always wanted the milk that came out of weeds to taste, but never did. Oddly disturbing and approachable at the same time...Love, love, love...

[bheansidhe]

Hemlock honey: in like a lion, out like a lamb.

 

The oil is precisely the color of a bottle of 1838 yellow Chartreuse liquor. In the vial it's a viscous, thick, sap-tangled honey, heavy with medicinal evergreen notes. It's loud and kind of scary, but once it hits the skin, it quiets down and mellows into a realistic waxen comb, rather than a sugared honey. This stays thick and sweet on drydown, and very much like actual food-grade honey instead of a perfume.

 

If honey loved my skin, I'd be all over this, because I love Lab evergreen blends. Though I will say this was the least nasty honey-skin interaction I've had to date, it still isn't for me (through no fault of its own). However, it's definitely worth seeking out for honey and evergreen lovers - don't let the first sniff put you off.

Edited September 5, 2013 by bheansidhe

[quickdrawkiddo]

This was one of those eh-why-not imps I bought just to round out a set of six, and boy am I glad I took a chance on it. Honey is definitely the main note but it has this undercurrent of SEXY that I would never have guessed was hemlock -- to me it's more musky than green. It actually reminds me a bit of Queen, which is my all-time favorite sexytimes scent. Both have the same "can't stop huffing my wrist and trying to figure out what makes this so delicious" effect on me I do get the herby note more on the drydown but it stays very soft and doesn't veer into cleaning-product territory. Just lovely

[alioth]

I picked up my bottle of Hemlock Honey on impulse, because I love my bottle of Jerusalem Cherry Honey. JC Honey somehow manages to perfectly replicate the smell of tomato plants to my nose; I was hoping for Hemlock Honey to perform a similar sort of magic. I wasn't disappointed! Honey loves my skin and my skin loves honey, and this is a beautiful honey cut through with a deep green scent that doesn't quite hit either pine or mint exactly, but has that cool sharpness. Others have used the term 'medicinal' and I think it applies in the best way possible. After a few hours of wear it softens down to a close scent, and that medicinal sharpness turns into something muskier, but still green. This is one of those scents where I can definitely see how it isn't everyone's thing, but it's totally my thing.

[blacksh33pboi]

This is a bit of a type-as-it-happens sort of review as I literally typed it right after I put it on, but hey. Here it is:

 

Oh wow! Very piney. Piney and powdery with a hint of sweetness with the powdery note mostly occurring on my neck and the pine being the most present on my wrists. Very odd. Now the powderiness is going away a little and the pine smell and the honey smell are beginning to intermingle with a sort of menthol/eucalyptus-like note that goes straight up my nose. Great for clearing sinuses, and not too obnoxious as a perfume either. :v This is a good winter aromatherapy-type fragrance so far. ...Okay WOW now it smells exactly like baby powder on my neck. On my wrists, it smells like honey and pine. So weird! Also, this is DEFINITELY the culprit of the weird baby powder smell that appeared on my blankets a few weeks ago. Must've spilled a drop of it. it's also the second culprit behind the soapy smell of my perfume drawer alongside Wrath. Heh. Man, this is an odd one. I really like it on the wrists but do not dig it on my neck. So weird. [about 15 minutes later...] ...Ok yeah no I really can't do this one. It just keeps smelling more and more like baby powder to the point where I want to sneeze. Even if it moves on past that, my nose can't take it.

Edited December 29, 2014 by blacksh33pboi

[Atrous]

Yep, this is Hemlock (sharp, green, herbal) with a lovely honey note.

Often Honey goes powdery but the Honey in this blend never does, which is a nice thing.

The sharp, herbal quality of the Hemlock and the sweetness of the Honey strike a really nice balance.

I wear this scent often because its simple and smells the same no matter what is going on with my chemistry or hormones.

[Veronica]

Wet, this is straight powdered honey--always sour as the Lab's honey tends to go on me. As this dries, the hemlock comes out and lends the powdered sour honey a dank note. Quite unpleasant.

[Kamanjah]

I received this as a frimp from BPTP when I ordered some UGH! Massage Oil. I was curious about the greenish color, so took a quick sniff. Honey. Ok. But a few minutes later, I had this gorgeous smell wafting up - I guess I got some on my fingers when I opened the imp. I put some on and enjoyed it all day. Literally! It lasted all day on me. I like the Tobacco Honey too. Tobacco is another scent I like.

 

I can't really identify hemlock because I don't know what it smells like by itself. But I like herbal scents - and herbs! I grow so many herbs that I usually smell like several because I've been doing a lot of harvesting lately.

 

Yes, it's mostly honey, and I like a lot of the BPAL honey scents (unless they have nut scents in them). This is now my favorite honey scent, and I will be buying a bottle next time I put in an order.

These simple honey scents (mixed with only one or two other scents) really last on me and have never gone powdery. My frimp is almost gone already, and my massage oil has only been used a few times!

[HighlyBell7]

In Imp: Bright yellow. Honey.

Wet: Sweet powdery honey with hints of green leaves. Green leaves morph to fir which is overpowering.

Dry: Fir and smelly feet and a hint of earwax.

Later: Honey gets stronger, but still firry. Ick.

Even Later: Fire eventually fades and just left with honey. Better, but meh.

Still Later: Honey with just the barest hint of vanilla base.

 

[filigree_shadow]

Definitely a lot of honey in this, which is often a bad thing for me because BPAL's honey notes don't usually play well with my skin. For some reason in this one it is not doing that usual plastic thing, though. But, the hemlock part of this scent is odd on me, though -- powdery and perfumey, in a way that I normally associate with old lady bath powder. I think this is just not really my thing.

[malcibiades]

Right out of the bottle, this definitely had a herbal/medicinal note on me -- the honey was still immediately present, but it was paired to something leafy and bitter. But pretty soon (within ~5 min) that acrid note had dimmed down into something really warm and golden. It stayed a really dark and witchy scent from start to finish, but not outrageously feminine or dusty like the beeswax notes in the Young Edith's Bedroom atmo spray. (I wish I had a better frame of reference, but that spray is my gold standard for delicate feminine waxy notes, and Hemlock Honey couldn't be more different.) It's very warm and sensual, but not delicate, if that makes any sense -- definitely wild and earthy.

[Casablanca]

Wand: Blue-green coniferous honey.

Wet: Coniferous blast. (Sounds like a superhero power you don't often hear of.) On my skin, I barely register honey at all, which is odd because I smelled honey in the ambient air as soon as I opened the vial.

Dry: This is almost all conifer tree for a while, a conifer with a quietly sweet touch... and then boom, lotsa honey. A wintery honey.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: Honey and pine, to my nose. Which is interesting for moments, but then the pine turns to cat pee on me.

 

 

Dry: Very soft honey. It's nice, but I have lots of other honey scents I like more, and the wet stage is quite terrible on my skin.

[puddingirl]

This is a glorious honey in the bottle. As it dries, the greenness of the hemlock comes out to play, which stops the honey from being too cloying. It reminds me of something from Lush. I recall a massage bar in the shape of a honeycomb, maybe that's it? It's becoming greener as it dries, I hope it doesn't overpower the honey. This seems to have calmed down now, and is a wonderful fragrance. Different to my other honeys which I like. A fresh scented honey.

[Coldfire]

imp: dark herb-y honey
Wet on Me: honey....with faint touches of dark herb notes
Drying Down: mostly honey with the dark green herb-y notes fading rapidly into the background.
Dry: honey. powder-y honey. Honey is not always my favorite. I think someone else will love this more.

[lizabelle]

This is amazing! I love Hemlock but it unfortunately disappears on me very quickly. This is the same bright, spicy herbal smell with a thick layer of the honey in Hetairae and Les Bijoux (my favorite of the lab's honey notes). It kind of smells like clover honey gone bad, and I love it. My mom announced she loved it as soon as she smelled it, too, so it seems to be a crowd-pleaser! I'll be getting a bottle as soon as possible.