Sweet Honesty

Avon Sweet Honesty (Vintage 1975 Garden Girl Decanter) Like many people, I remembered Sweet Honesty from my childhood. But when I tried a modern roll-on version a couple of years ago, I was left disappointed. It felt thin, simplified, and lacked the richness I remembered; I just assumed nostalgia had gotten the better of me. Not too long ago I decided to hunt down the original version; eventually acquired a 1975 4oz Sweet Honesty ‘Garden Girl’ decanter for $5 on eBay, and discovered my memory wasn’t wrong after all! Upon first opening of the decanter, the aldehydes were sharp and soapy; they dominated the opening and made the fragrance seem way more old-fashioned than it really is. So i decided to air out the funk :) I accidentally left the bottle open for a couple of hours while airing it out, and when I returned the aldehydes had softened dramatically - pro tip in case your vintage bottle smells too sharp! What emerged underneath the soapiness was just beautiful, I was elated! The heart of Sweet Honesty is a softly blended floral bouquet of muguet, hyacinth and rose with a creamy, almost velvety texture and a bit of a green snap that isn’t bothersome at all. Everything is just blended into a shower-fresh ‘wow you smell so nice’ aura. The fragrance gradually settles into a rich powdery base with warm skin musk and a gentle, vanillic honeyed sweetness that feels comforting, not sugary. There is far more depth here than what I expected from a fragrance often dismissed as a simple Avon scent. The woody component is present but not at all dominant, rather it’s a support scaffolding for the florals and the honey-vanilla. What impressed me most is how balanced the blend feels. The powder never becomes dusty, the sweetness never becomes cloying, and the skin-scent musk remains soft and approachable. The vintage version of Sweet Honesty has a warmth and fullness that its modern version seems to lack. It is absolutely lovely and wearable in modern times, I’ve caught myself reaching for it whenever I go out in public and just want to smell clean and pretty and know that I’m not offending anyone with my sillage. Vintage Sweet Honesty is also a fabulous and very calming/comforting bedtime fragrance, as other reviewers have noted! For anyone chancing a vintage bottle of this, please don’t judge it solely by the first few minutes. If the aldehydes seem overwhelming to you, a few airings should help reveal the beautiful floral-powdery-honeyed composition underneath. In my case, it transformed the fragrance from “yikes” to “this is exactly what I remembered.” I did lose a bit of the juice in the process (I noticed the level went down a little in the bottle after I had left it open) but it was worth it, as it transformed the scent into something very wearable (and a little off the top of a 4oz decanter is nothing) Now I fully understand why Sweet Honesty survived for decades. Beneath the clean, soapy opening is a genuinely lovely crowd-pleasing fragrance, with far more character than its reputation suggests. To me it’s solar floral happiness in a bottle! ************************ For those searching for the original Sweet Honesty, the launch spray bottle is transparent with a bow molded into the glass towards the top and a pink column cap. However, I personally recommend getting one of the Cologne splash decanters listed below and transferring the juice into an atomizer, so you can blow off the excess aldehydes from your bottle before use. The following decanters contain the original Sweet Honesty fragrance and can be had for a few dollars (not an exhaustive list) - Garden Girl both 1975 (yellow) & 1978 (pink) versions - Queen of Scots milk glass scotty dog - Precious Doe - Teddy Bear (fuzzy) - Little Miss Muffet - Mary Mary quite contrary - Little Bo Peep - Little Burro - Curious Kitty - Treasure Turtle - Hobnail Bell - Emerald Bell - Just a Twist - Song of Love (birdcage) - 1978 California Perfume Co historical tribute bottle

Alright. Ladies below who have decried the reformulation, I hope you're reading this. The moment I searched 'Sweet Honesty' on ebay two weeks ago, dozens of results showed for a vintage-looking, clear glass bottle of 'California Perfume, Anniversary Addition', with the sweetest little gold cap and pink bow around the neck. They were cheap and won me over, but I wondered, "is this really Sweet Honesty?" I googled it and sure enough, Avon has been releasing "keepsake" bottles from vintage batches of Sweet Honesty they apparently kept from 1975 and 1978. Mine arrived yesterday, and "1975" is embossed on the back of the glass. I figure this surely is the vintage, because, for one thing, it's beautiful. Secondly, it doesn't smell dominantly like baby powder, and even if it had... A NOTE IN DEFENSE OF BABY POWDER: When someone says, "it smells like baby powder" about a scent it isn't usually a compliment. Yet to me, and a small handful of others - it is! I like the scent of baby powder, period. If you don't like it, then I guess you wouldn't even put it on a baby! Except that if you do enjoy smelling it on a baby, and you say you won't wear it because you "don't want to smell like a baby" then... aren't you just denying yourself the chance to wear a scent you like? Yes, fragrance is strongly associative (e.g. baby powder = baby). This also means that it's easy to create new associations, though (e.g. baby powder = beautiful woman). Open minds will participate in wearing their perfumes by adding unexpected, individual dimensions of personality. There isn't so much wrong with smelling like a baby anyhow when the "baby notes" themselves are beautiful; many babies smell not only like baby powder but, through toiletries or more natural means, like apples, strawberries, cotton candy, mommy's cosmetics including perfume, laundry detergent, milk (which adults drink, too!), fresh air, sun, sunscreen (I hope!), lavender, lemons, roses, sugar and spice and EVERYTHING NICE. There are days when I sure wouldn't mind smelling like everything nice! :) Did you know that baby powder smells different in Europe than it does in America? Here we use Johnson+Johnson and corresponding knockoffs, scented with citrus, floral and vanilla. In Europe their popular baby powders are primarily scented with orange blossom and musk. In 1995, a study was conducted by Dr. Alan Hirsch that discovered women are more aroused by the scent of baby powder (probably J+J but who knows) than by men's cologne and chocolate. (Men weren't tested with baby powder). Obviously, they took the baby powder out of the "baby" context for this blind study. Review continued: This bottle of Sweet Honesty I have is sweet, and deep. I think it's a youthful skin scent. It reminds me of a lighter, sweeter, non-spicy Sensuous Nude by Estee Lauder. It's easy to layer (I've layered with The Body Shop's White Musk Libertine, and L'Interdit). There is no powdery accord on my skin and it isn't listed in the accords here. The absence of powder takes Sweet Honesty out of the baby powder realm of scent for me. I want to add that this is my first Avon perfume. I bought it because growing up I always wanted to try the Avons that others were wearing, but my mom wouldn't buy anything from them because of some negative experience she had as a teen with an Avon seller, lol. The next time I'm in Paris and having an afternoon cappuccino at Cafe de Flore, my 1975 Sweet Honesty California Perfume Anniverary Keepsake is what I'll be wearing. They won't know I'm wearing a "baby powder" scent, they will only (hopefully) know I smell good.

I'm so biased to this, so maybe skip over my review. One night a year or two ago, I admitted to my mother over the phone of my draw towards perfume. She told me of one perfume she could wear and enjoyed and I couldn't remember if it was Sweet Honesty or True Love. I had recently purchased some second hand perfumes at the time and a vintage of both were in there. I told her she would enjoy this 2nd one too. I couldn't remember which was which, as they're very similar in softness. Since then, seeing both bottles on my shelf reminded me of her and when I get homesick (I live far away) I sniff one of the bottles, very infrequently do I spray as just seeing them makes me feel she is close. Fast forward to this week. Just the other night I sprayed True Love and left a review, thinking it was that one which she said she could wear, but tonight I've sprayed Sweet Honesty... I went searching online to see which bottle I have, as it came with no top. While searching, I found the "Precious Doe" bottle I remember always admiring on her dresser top. It's this! Mine is just a plain oval shaped 50ml bottle, but hers was lovely, and as I lay here I can smell her. This is it. This is my mother. She only ever had the one bottle that I remember, so I guess I can't call it her signature scent and she hasn't worn it in years as she never treats herself to anything, but smelling this reminds me of her in the 80s, and of me opening the doe bottle and having a sniff every chance I had when she wasn't looking, even long after the perfume was gone. I'm going to find a way to get her a bottle of both because I just know she will enjoy True Love as well... but this is my mama. So soft and sweet, not like candy, but like a baby's head if that makes sense. I know this isn't much of a review, I can't even describe this scent other than powdery soft and a light sweetness with a touch of musk. It reminds me of hugs, being held by her. Tucking my face up into her neck while I cried for whatever reason as a child. It sits close to the skin so only the closest people to you will smell it. I hope this hasn't been reformulated, though I'm guessing like nearly everything else, that it has. The one I have smells just like hers did. I'll try and get my hands on a newer one and save this one for those nights when I miss her the most. I can't believe it's taken me this long to figure that out, but in any case... now I know.

When I was a child, I was gifted a bottle of perfume that was shaped like a little girl. Back then, the name of the juice inside this bottle wasn't very important to me. All I cared about was having my own bottle of perfume (cologne). I had long-forgotten the name of this fragrance--until about a year ago when I decided to order a bottle of Sweet Honesty. Once I smelled it, I immediately remembered having smelled it before. This was the first real fragrance that I ever owned. Sweet Honesty will always hold a special place in my heart. I hope Avon never stops making it. It is soft, delicate, and absolutely beautiful. It is a very unique fragrance in my opinion. Whenever I smell Sweet Honesty, it kind of reminds me of a young girl's hope chest. I don't mean there's anything old, stale or musty about it. I mean it makes me think of roses and fresh, perfumed linens tucked away in a cedar chest. I have not smelled anything like Sweet Honesty. It is unique. It's not a very strong scent. It's more of a casual skin scent. It's good for any time of day and any time of the year. There is a sweet, fresh, and innocent quality about it, and that makes it perfect for young girls. Some older women like to wear it, too. There's no rule that says they can't. I'm sure it brings back many good memories from bygone years. Sweet Honesty is NOT too sweet as some people have said in their reviews. it's perfect. The cedar balances it out nicely. I still wear Sweet Honesty from time to time, and so does my young daughter. I like to spray it on sometimes before bedtime. I find it to be quite comforting.

From what I remember, this is the fragrance that I've been wearing the longest of any I've encountered since my childhood and I'm in my late 40s. My former neighbor lady was an Avon salesperson and she used to bring over lots of fun samples and older products, saying she didn't want them. My younger sister and I thought that was a wonderful treat! That is how I first discovered Sweet Honesty. I loved the old retro box and bottle with the artwork reminiscent of a sunrise (or maybe sunset.) So I got to wear SH a lot throughout my childhood as it was gifted to us by our neighbor lady. Now decades later, I would say this is my all-time favorite perfume. With my history of it I would say it's one of only 5 perfumes out of hundreds that I own that do not annoy me even a tiny little bit. It's one that I feel genuinely comfortable wearing, so I reach for it frequently. It's one of the few fragrances that I've repurchased multiple times. Sweet Honesty is like a whisper, or maybe a soft echo, of fragrance in a world of sweet gourmands that often make me feel a little sick. It is especially refreshing after a shower and before bedtime. This is a wonderful sleeping fragrance, also for hanging around the house in your pajamas, reading and watering your plants, or whatever. For me it just brings back pleasant memories of easier times, and it will always have a place in my collection. I have to wonder though, since it's been rebottled in the last year or two, does it seem "weaker" somehow than it used to? I seem to notice a change, as I have with other Avon classics in the new bottles.