Sampling Borntostandout Mad Honey, a mix of honey, rose, rum, pink pepper, and a blended base of vanilla, patchouli, tonka, benzoin, and ambergris, mainly adding an earthy, sweet, creamy aspect to the dry down. Mostly, the scent is defined by the rose-and-honey-led sweet and spicy opening that remains prominent into the dry down, and the rose especially lingers quite a bit to my nose, really being the standout note more so than the eponymous honey, even, so this is really a scent for rose lovers, I’d argue, though it’s well supported by creamy, sweet, spicy, resinous elements that give it complexity, depth, and perhaps a slightly broader appeal. It’s quite intense, though, something I’d opt to wear in cooler weather or when looking to stand out a bit. Fortunately, it’s not too heady but there’s definitely a slghtly sharp, powdery corner of the experience of smelling it that I get wafts of periodically when re-smelling on skin.
Like the rest of the line, Mad Honey is EDP, sold at a handful of US boutiques like Ministry of Scent, and priced at $290/210/85 for 100/50/15ml. It’s likely the best-performing scent I’ve tried from the house so far, with a pretty strong scent cloud resulting from just a couple of sprays via the sample obtained as part of the Dark & Drunk discovery set.
Overall, it’s an interesting and compelling blend that I would regard as a love rather than a like, in the scheme of things, probably my second favorite of the line after Drunk Maple.
