When Mrs. C and I moved out to farm country six years ago I was worried about how I would handle it. My wife and I are the reverse of Green Acres, she loves the fresh air and I want Fifth Avenue. After seventeen years of urban living in Boston it was her turn to have the lifestyle she wanted. Surprisingly I have come to love this life. Much of it is because of the farms which surround us and the relationships we have with all of them. As a result, I have become more intimately acquainted with the source of the food I eat. One of those foods is honey. I have gone to the hives and seen the honey being harvested. There is a fantastic scent of the raw honey as it comes off the beeswax of the hive in viscous sheets. That has been captured as a perfume in Sonoma Scent Studio Bee’s Bliss.
One of the things I’ve learned about honey is it has a strong scent of the source of flower nectar that the bees have been harvesting. It is fabulous as the floral quality leaps out of the sticky liquid. The honey that is in your local supermarket is blended from many sources and so this quality is diminished. When you get honey directly from the hive you know where most of the nectar has come from.
Laurie Erickson
Laurie Erickson the perfumer behind Sonoma Scent Studio must have also had the same opportunity living out in Sonoma Valley in California. In California, orange blossom or mimosa are going to be one of the main sources of nectar for the bees meaning the raw honey Ms. Erickson might be familiar with should carry those floral scents within. That is where Ms. Erickson starts with Bee’s Bliss keeping it very simple.
It is the mixture of mimosa and orange blossom that comes first. Then as if the bees are carrying the nectar back to the hive it slowly is subsumed in a sweet honey matrix. In this early phase Bee’s Bliss is a soft sweetly floral ride. Another thing I’ve learned form the local hives is there is a substance called Propolis which the bees use as caulk for the gaps in the hive. That comes from the sap of the local trees and smells very green. Ms. Erickson’s fragrance equivalent is vetiver modulated with oakmoss. This is where the smell of harvesting honey comes through to me. For the base Ms. Erickson takes inspiration from the color of fresh honey as waves of amber and benzoin finish Bee’s Bliss.
Bee’s Bliss has 8-10 hour longevity and moderate sillage.
Living in the country I have come to appreciate the simple pleasures; Bee’s Bliss is one of those with its sunny personality. Despite that it is simple it is an excellently realized perfume of the hive. As I wore it the best phrase I could think of to describe it is an old one from the 1920’s; Bee’s Bliss is the bee’s knees.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Sonoma Scent Studio.
–Mark Behnke
