Rue St Honore

This is my perfect gardenia. Often times, they're too sharp, too green, too bitter, too sweet, too creamy, too overwhelmed by other notes - this is the perfect FRESH gardenia scent. The holy grail for those searching for a gardenia that smells more like the actual flower. I've tried so many gardenia scents, from low to the highest of high end. Who knew this low/mid-price scent would accomplish what so many others did not? I prepared myself to be disappointed, but am in love. The violet and ylang-ylang add a floral-creaminess and calm down any tendency towards sharpness or bitterness. I think the ylang-ylang is doing the real heavy lifting here - my skin LOVES ylang-ylang and it will elevate almost any note to something a bit creamier. I'm not getting any muskiness on my skin. Beautiful and natural gardenia. Love it.

Discovered this from the Ouai Hair Oil first and didn’t particularly like the scent as I felt it was way too strong for a hair product. In general, if I want to smell like something, I will spray on perfume. I finished the mini of the oil I had and then realized I began to miss the smell, so I bought this. Ugh this is SO pretty. It’s extremely floral and feminine so it won’t be for everyone, but this reminds me of sunny spring days and white lace. It lasts a moderate amount of time, but be careful with how many sprays you use, because it can easily offend someone. For this reason I only wear it if I will be somewhere outdoors or just at home by myself.

I tested it the first time when it was released and hated it. I tried it again recently and was super surprised at how much I loved it. I loved it so much I bought it on the spot. This is nothing like what I remember the first time and I’m so glad because this smells like a violet dipped in sugar with a squirt of lemon and a puff of musk. This is also a great blend because I love Ylang Ylang and I don’t get any of that. I’m a huge fan of violet and own very few perfumes with violet in it because I’ve found very few that smell any good to me. This is wonderful, light, intimate and lasts about 4 hours on my skin and the dry down is musky sweet citrus

Bought OUAI matte pomade and was shocked by the smell of the product. Went on the website of theirs and was suprised to discover that their stuff contains different smells of the perfumes- matte pomades being Rue St Honore. Also went on to buy the hand cream and eventually the perfume. Getting my hands on the perfume was little tricky. Ylang-ylang and gardenia are really in harmony and suited together, but I can smell some tuberose, which is not listed in the notes. Looking forward to buying Melrose Place soon.

I like Ouai hair products, so I was interested to see this limited edition line of fragrances on Sephora's website. Two of them were already sold out, and of the two remaining, I decided to buy this one based on the notes. VERY happy with this blind buy. I agree with others who have said here and on the Sephora site that it smells like Kai. The ylang note distinguishes it from Kai, though. Rue St. Honore is beachy and gorgeous! I'm glad I got a bottle when I had the chance.

To my nose and even my friends said this is the garden of lilies. I could imagine gardenia but that’s not to my nose at first sniff or even now. This is a skin scent that is not overpowering. If you love white floral and you can get along w strong white floral note that could be heady, this is a great one! By the way, gardenia doesn’t have essential oil so if you think you smell rose, you are right because gardenia is a combination of jasmine and rose.

Don’t listen to the naysayers. This perfume is BEAUTIFUL!! It’s cool, fresh white gardenia all day long. Similar to leaning into the cooler at a florist shop and inhaling. It’s not screechy and migraine inducing like Gucci Gorgeous Gardenia. I also bought Melrose because this one was so lovely and I did not like it. I have been cautiously trying everything with gardenia ever since. I say cautiously because Gucci traumatized me.

A must have for Gardenia lovers, and I am one of them! This is such a realistic gardenia flower. It even embodies the faint scent of the fresh cut stems along with the slightly powdery feel of the fresh petals. I smell like a beautiful bouquet of freshly cut gardenia flowers. ❤❤❤... As an added bonus I tried layering this with Monoi body lotion by Sephora, amazing Gardenia goodness!

This is a creamy white floral scent. The note that sticks out to me the most is gardenia. It’s a musky, sweet gardenia scent. Perfect for summertime. Although nothing original or unique, I already own about a dozen similar scents, it’s still nice to have as I’m a huge white floral fan. The projection power is nice, it definitely radiates, still testing longevity.

Beautiful realistic delicate creamy gardenia flower. This is what I wanted Eau de Soleil Blanc (which I foolishly own and tried to make work for months) to be. I wore a fresh gardenia in my hair on my wedding day because I love the scent so much. This is the closest I can get without the natural flower. Nice bottle & sprayer too.

Very realistic white florals. Soft and somewhat powdery. Reminded me of a gentle hand soap or lotion. Comfy, creamy and light. Sweet but not in a gourmand way. Simple nothing groundbreaking. Feminine, pretty and warm. Uncomplicated and approachable. It also reminded me of the store Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Similar to Acqua Di Gioia Light but powdery and sweeter with the Ylang Ylang and not woody. Honeysuckle Banana Gardenia type of fragrance with a musky dry down. Great for spring and for summer nights. I find it soft and relaxing to wear for bed. I wish it came in a 100ml.

Beautifully uncomplicated gardenia scent. Ever so slightly musky with thankfully no sweetness. Sits close to the skin. Doesn't last quite as long as I wish it would; about 4 hours in the summer heat. A little overpriced at $60 for 1.7 oz.

Super realistic gardenia, white and creamy. I get a hint of ylang ylang which I don’t normally love, but it works here. I don’t really smell the violet. Subtle white musk after a few hours on the dry down. Love this one.

OUAI is such an approachable brand, all scents I've tried, including this one, smell modern but not edgy. No matter what the notes are, people always compliment, Ahh! Smells so nice!

clean, crisp gardenia. I spray this on myself SEVERAL times a day - the staying power is almost non existent. but it is so very fresh and pleasant - distinct similarity here to KAI.

It smells like the color white and lacy. It’s soft and pillowy and very creamy, it smells like silk sheets. Amazing

I bought a small bottle of ouai hair oil on my last trip to the mall, and I was currently looking for a gardenia scent and I never expected that it would smell like gardenias, and the catch is that it smells EXACTLY like gardenias! Oh my goodness this is heavenly, the creamy, florally, coconut-y flower is just chef kiss🤌. I’m definitely gonna get the perfume because thank god it exists otherwise i’d be using the hair oil on my pulse points. By what it smells like to me, it smells like it could be used as a bedtime scent, its not a sharp gardenia nor is it offensive as a floral, its soft and sweet enough to cuddle up in bed with. Idealy i can see it being used after a relaxing bath, the type of baths where the only lights being lit are candles and you almost fall asleep in the baths. And then you come crawl into bed where all the sheets and comforters are clean and your pillow is nice and cool to instantly fall asleep on. I love giving visual descriptions of perfume, it brings the element of liking a fragrance more than its actual smell. This is a 1000/10 Gardenia fragrance Edit: okay, its been a handful of months, I don’t have the perfume yet but still the hair oil. I don’t know for sure if they put the same scent ingredients into the perfume but the smell of the hair oil turned to being a scratchy white floral. I haven’t used it much since it really greases up my hair (not fit for my hair porosity and current condition) but its what happens when you forget about it, the fragrance gets scratchy.

Hm, I am strongly hesitating, if I like it... Or not... I blind-bought the perfume, together with North Bondi and Melrose Place. NB and MP was of 10 ml, and Rue St. Honoré was only 50ml. It sounds so French... So I thought I can't go wrong. I use Ouai hair care products. Well, some. And I know Jen Atkin put some good smells in those products. However, on the paper where I sprayed the perfume, nothing significant happened during the whole process of opening - heart - base. I felt a strong dislike because of that sharp green violet. I love violet as a flower, but noone seems to cope with violets in fragrances, they always mess up that note 😒. My overall impression of the perfume was - it smells like a vintage violet-powder puff, mixed with some dirty, earthy mushrooms. And some bananas and coconut. So I started to think that I have to sell the perfume somehow. On the other hand, my Dad smelled this by chance when he was near me - I have already sprayed the fragrance on my wrists. He complimented me immediately. For me, this perfume of the 3 ones I purchased, symbolizes the cold winter. When I sniff it, I always get the image of the elegant, shiny snow with lots of beautiful coniferous trees. I know it has tropical flowers in it 🤭, but still. Edit: I tested it with Jo Malone: Myrrh and Tonka. What you get is green vanilla leather. I know this sounds crazy, but that is it. And it is very interesting. STILL. Those violets completely ruin the beauty of the white flowers. Rue St. Honoré - you leave !!!

creamy ylang bomb! showed this on a tester paper to my mum and she said 'Yep. That's ylang'. Mum grew up in the Philippines so she'd know, but I've never smelled real ylang so i'll try and describe Rue St Honore without saying 'ylang': it's a creamy, cloudy, waxy, almost coconutty white floral - in fact i was surprised to see this doesn't have coconut. It's just kind of heavy so I probably wouldn't wear this, but out of the four OUAI perfumes they had at my Sephora this was the best!

I own the hair oil which is strongly perfumed, like most of Ouai’s products. With gardenia notes being so rare in perfumery, I don’t have much to compare this to but overall I really enjoy it. It’s more floral and less fruity than Mugler’s Aura and more potent and sharp than Chanel’s Gardénia. And less solar than something like Nuxe Le Prodigieuse. I’ll admit it’s slightly bitter, with an almost pickly undertone, something which I don’t mind as it adds interest to the fragrance.

I noticed the scent has purple flowers. Initially, I thought it was lilac, but it turns out to be a combination of gardenia and violet. The fragrance has a very old-fashioned profile, which isn’t quite to my liking. I wouldn’t wear it every day as it feels too noticeable and heavy on the florals, which can occasionally provoke a headache.

It smells like youre surrounded by real white flowers. Its not perfumey. It reminds me heavily of walking in regents park its definitely not sexy but i really like it!! It also does last quite long and has good sillage. Its a good quality fragrance for sure. And the packagingis fun, its a favourite and unique too.

I think this is my favorite of Ouai’s fragrances. It doesn’t pull overly floral on me, it feels well balanced with the musk and it just smells clean and unobtrusive. It’s polished but not provocative—you could wear it to work or a family gathering or the library and just smell good.

I thought this was a big tuberose scent but I am smelling the ylang I guess. It’s prominent. It smells like the inside of a florist very similar to tocca florence but beastly performance. It smells very green and flowery and a little sweet. It’s nice enough

Am I the only person here who smells lily of the valley instead of gardenia?? This reminds me so much of my first "real" perfume, Coty Muguet des Bois- it has decent staying power and sillage, too ...a real breath of fresh spring air-

Lush Silky Underwear was my first and enduring thought. I like to very much. Decent longevity. Safe to wear. I didn’t expect extraordinary so this was what I expected. Much better than any Zara but still mainstream as anything.

Beautiful staying power and projection ( not too in your face, but present) / longevity on this- lasted pleasantly through a very smoky izakaya / grilling skewer dinner date. White and yellow florals with some chutzpah.

Like being suffocated by fleshy tropical flowers, in a good way! Also has a humid quality that reminds me of a hair salon. I like wearing this on hot, sultry, slow moving days.

To the point, nice and soft gardenia. Nothing groundbreaking, but a really pleasant simple floral. It reminds me of a 90s bath bomb, a little nostalgic and comforting.

Unabashed white floral, super feminine gardenia scent. I like it! Agree with the reviews that it smells similar to Kai (although I slightly prefer Kai).

Sweet gardenia is balanced with violet and fresh soapy greens. Not too sweet like gardenia fragrances can be sometimes. Very nice.

It's definitely a less sweet gardenia. Compared to aerin's gardenia, this one seems much colder and less sweet.

I wanted to try this since so many people had voted it reminded them of Kai Kai, which I own and love. But the only thing I find that they have in common is that they contain gardenia. Rue St Honore opens up with gardenia and ylang making it much more yellow and sweet than Kai. It stays fairly linear for an hour or so before going in to a very dry musk on my skin. It's the kind of cool dryness, like musk on a paper, that I personally don't like. I'd say the drydown is 90% musk and 10% mixed between gardenia and the coolness from violet (although I'd like to say perhaps orris root even though it's not among the notes). Kai is compared to this scent more white florals and greener. It is also more linear and definitely the one I prefer.

Blind bought this one. I sprayed this in the packaging first and I did NOT like it at all, I didn’t get what the reviews were saying and it was just a little disappointing. It was just a screechy white floral smell that didn’t evolve at all. Later I decided to try it on my arm and it was a lot better. I finally got the musk and I really liked that in combination with the florals and ylang ylang. Not sure if it’s my favorite, but I’ll be wearing her anyways. She’ll probably be waiting till it’s summer tho. I think she’ll be really nice to wear right out of the shower, in combination with the hair products of ouai and another fresh perfume.

This is the most tolerable gardenia fragrance I've tried. It doesn't smell creamy or like milk, like other gardenia perfumes smell to me. It still smells overwhemingly of gardenia and basically nothing else, but fairly pleasant, to a gardenia hater like me. This smells fresh, a little beachy, shampooey (I guess understandably). It's nice but I don't love it.

I don’t think I’d buy it again, too much gardenia and ylang for me. A bit too sharp. I like the violet. Don’t smell enough musk. would enjoy smelling this scent on my linens rather than my body.

A kind of classic/old-school smelling sharp, dry floral, but oddly a bit soapy as well. Listed as white florals but there is something very rose-y about it to me.

It has a clean, soapy, light scent that is pleasant, but it does not last long at all. I couldn't smell it anymore within an hour of wearing it.

Rue St Honore is more of a tuberose than gardenia scent, but nonetheless it is very pretty, very pleasant... if not commonplace. And that’s it’s main stumble: there are so many similar scents with better longevity. This perfume is in a category with very stiff competition as the market has been flooded with tuberose/gardenia scents over the last decade. There’s nothing here that separates Rue St Honore from its competition. That said, I would not run and hide from anyone wearing it. But I would not be surprised to see this heavily discounted in the grey market—just wait a few years. Another negative for me is that both places I sprayed this stung immediately upon application. And I don’t have sensitive skin. There’s so much alcohol in this juice that it takes several minutes for it to burn off. That’s never a good sign.

Definitely a strong floral fragrance. I do not get much of the violent note or much sweetness. It's very nice though, like inhaling a garden of gardenias on a warm spring day. Moderate sillage and moderate to longer lasting longevity. If you love florals, especially gardenias, this is an easy blind buy. If you are looking for a sweet violet scent, I'd do a sample first.

first scent i've ever tried that was an absolute scrubber. the scent experience is like being beaten violently over the head with a floral centerpiece from your grandmother's dining room

This smells ok-strong gardenia scent. It's similar to Michael Kors Island 2005 blue bottle. It wasn't right for me then, and I still don't like it.

This smells like honeysuckle and indolic tuberose. It’s a no for me. A slightly rotten floral, creamy scent.

didnt like this it smelled somewhere between coconut and clean laundry?

WHAT the actual F*CK is this?! I’m going to be brutal with this review which is extremely rare, I maybe did 3 brutal reviews in my 33 yrs of life & this is one of them. I’m actually kinda offended on the behalf of those beautiful notes, violet, gardenia, ylang ylang & white musk? Sound VERY safe blindbuy to me! And I was actually wanting to get it but something just held me back. It has been sitting in my wishlist on nichebeauty app for over a year now & im SO GLAD I didn’t blind buy it! I received it as a sample & here is my review: I can’t describe the scent other than they had all the potential with those beautiful notes & made the absolute worst cocktail of them all! These are some of my TOP fave notes & I can’t recognize a single one of them in this perfume! This perfume absolutely stinks. It stinks of bad smelling toilet 🚽 cleaner. It is EXTREMELY misleading in terms of the accord’s & description, it smells NOTHING like anything mentioned. I can’t believe this is made by the same brand that has the most beautiful St. Barts & Melrose palace fragrances!!! Stick to these two, with my top fave st. Barts & Melrose palace is close second. In fact Melrose palace is the first ever rose fragrance I loved, as I hate smelling rose in perfumes 99% of the time. I don’t mind it if it’s mute. Disappointing. Very disappointing! And I’m SO GLAD I didn’t blind buy it because I would not be able to return it in my country. I wouldn’t even use it as a toilet freshener!

Hmmm, I can't make up my mind...I kind of like it but I'm not sure. It's much to floral for me but there is something...On me it smells mostly of a gardenia musk and it's strong so a little goes a long way. Yesterday when I got it I sprayed my right wrist and seven hours later I still could smell it. My husband loves it on me. Will keep it for now.....

Although I normally find white-floral musky scents to be very pleasant, this perfume was just... awful. I found it to be overpoweringly sickly sweet with a horrid undercurrent of decay. Smelled like rotting flowers. On a positive note, for a more low-end perfume, I must say that the packaging is very nice and features a magnetized cap.

Slightly dirty white flower and prominent Ylang-ylang with a timid musk that can’t decide if it wants to be clean or animalic. Smells old to me, as in vintage old. An old item like a book or a coat that just stayed there collecting dust for years.......... yeah I don’t like it

You know when a fragrance just makes you feel more like yourself? Like this is how you're supposed to smell in the world? This is that for me. This is what I've been looking for since I graduated from the sweet juvenile scents I used to love. I've never found anything that's quite right, but I'm so glad I took the risk and blind bought this perfume based on the fact that it was supposed to smell like a hair oil I enjoy. On the Sephora website, a lot of people are comparing this as an exact dupe of J.Lo glow. That was a fragrance I've worn and gone back to many times since it launched when I was in highschool. This has a similar sort of feel, but it's definitely not the same. This is creamy, dreamy, soft, and a bit sweet to me. It smells like gardenia whipped cream, if that could ever be a thing. Where the J.Lo glow certainly smells of white flowers, it has more of a clean or soapy tone to me, where this Ouai fragrance is much more creamy, without even a hint of powderiness. I don't get a lot of violet, it's definitely white flowers for me, but in the best way. I'm in love. I feel like this is what I've been looking for my entire adult life. Silage is moderate, I think it stays close to the body, but it's not weak. Lasting power is strong on the skin, even stronger on clothes and hair.