Starlit Mandarin & Honey

This is beautiful! Mandarin and honey go really well together, I never would have guessed in culinary terms. But they seem to have a similar quality of sweetness, with the slightly tart citrus acting to tone down the magnitude of sweet in the honey. This isn’t cloying at all. It also smells more like beeswax than jarred honey, or honey on the comb, and I feel like that should be added as a note when describing this. It reminds me of a beeswax candle I have with the citrus mixed in. I love it 💛🐝🍊 Edit: it’s been 7 hours and I can still smell it on my skin, though it became a skin scent almost immediately. As it dries down it gets sweeter and less waxy. At some point (and somehow) it starts smelling like Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling but lasts longer. Yum! Edit edit: it’s been several days and I can still smell it subtly on clothes.

Powdery sweet mandarin with amber, hay and spice. Fragrantica's fragrance notes shown above is not complete. According to Jo Malone's website: Top notes: sweet mandarin, cedrat, star anise Heart notes: honey, hay, geranium Base notes: coumarin, peru balsam, holy grass Edit: after maceration for 9 months, it lasted more than 8 hours on my skin. This one definitely needs PROPER maceration to perform properly! Oh and i suspect many people became anosmic to it FAST having sprayed too much and smelled it for too long and up close their noses, that resulted in their dismal experiences of abject performance. The performance of this perfume for me is definitely satisfactory after maceration for 9 months!

This smells nearly identical to a previously released fragrance called Tobacco & Mandarin. The only difference is that Starlit Mandarin is a bit more spicy and has WAY less longevity. I know people dog on Jo Malone colognes for having bad sillage and longevity, but I'd never experienced such until I purchased Starlit Mandarin. It completely vanishes from my skin within 10 minutes. By far the biggest let down, and I am a HUGE long-term Jo fan. If you're looking to get this cologne based on notes, opt for Tobacco & Mandarin instead.

Love the gorgeous bottle so I just had to have it! The scent is alright but there are plenty of Jo Malone fragrances that are much more enticing. The Mandarin is there and the honey is also quite prominent so I feel that makes it more on the sweeter more unisex to female scent profile. If you like Mandarin then I highly recommend their ‘Bitter Mandarin’.

Initially warm and woody, and turns into a sweet honey and beeswax with some citrus. Surprising for a scent made for the winter, and I can see it working for any season as long as it isn't too hot. I wore it on a cloudy day and felt it was a very discreet skin-like scent, but it might turn harsh in sunny weather.