Reviews of Miel de Bois (2005)
by Serge Lutens Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido

At first I loved this honey scent (I really don’t know why so many people are disgusted by it). However, it’s so light and linear that I eventually found it quite boring. In addition, its sillage and longevity are below average.

[Original submission date: 25 May 2008]

this is a love or hate scent and really depends on body chemistry. it is very sensual on me and i do not get the cat urine odour at all. It suits my chemistry I do not wear it any more because it smells exactly like my ex's body odour and breath during intimate moments. i loathe his memory , but still love the scent. 2 stars were taken away because memory and desire can quickly turn into anger and loathing, and spoil a fragrance

As a newbie at this fragrance reviewing lark, it's time for me to confess that my experience of perfume has been a love/hate affair. There are hardly any fragrances I can wear that don't make me feel physically nauseous - something to do with synthetic ingredients possibly. I was introduced to the world of Serge Lutens by in an amazing perfume 'pharmacy' in Devon called Woodfordes. After smelling lots of very traditional brands (the likes of Calvin Klein, DKNY, Chanel et al are off my list) I was introduced to Miel de Bois. I was intruiged. Previously I had loved Jo Malone's Ginger and Nutmeg, and Wild Fig and Cassis, so the sweet spicyness of Serge's MDB caught me in its grip.
Unlike many reviewers I can't smell the cat-pee/urinary quality, instead on my skin after about ten minutes it smells wonderfully of burnt honey.. a very 'rude' scent almost! I love it, but couldn't imagine wearing it on a hot day... so 'hot' itself! It's woody, slightly spicy, very treacle tart!

This is the first Lutens I loathe. Unfortunately this is not a "this is too weird to love" reaction many have to various Lutens' fragrances, this is the reaction of someone encountering a fragrance at once bland, loud, over-sweet and inaccurate.

Sugar, and something like sawdust. Mostly just pure, searing sweetness, though. This does not smell like honey to me, and if anything, puts me in mind of Nasomatto Duro's tinned-frosting effect.

Something nasty and complex and urine-smelling might have been better than what this fragrance IS.

Lasts an eternity, as I found from my repeated unsuccessful attempts to wash it off...

This must be one of the weirdest scents I've sampled. The best way to describe it is "honey and cooking grease." It is strangely appealing, but can also be nauseating -- the line is that thin between the two reactions, depending on the proportion of grease vs honey I can smell at any given time. It's an insidious scent with great staying power; the miasmas do not lose strengths for hours even after a light application. I can imagine someone wearing Miel De Bois strictly for kicks, but I don't see myself spending my hard earned money on this.

Honey to some smells like a certain liquid human-waste product which the debate upon which Kouros is famous. The honey in Miel de Bois leans towards the floral side. Unexpected from the Serge Lutens line, a light sweet woody fragrance... that goes no where expect to an abrasive splinter of wood. Not for me.

Miel de Bois is a notoriously quirky and eccentric beauty, and it's definitely not for everyone. MdB is a beauty with characters, not one of those Revlon models, they come and go every season, that no matter how pretty they are, you just don't seem to remember their faces. I can only wear this one occassionally when the mood is right. I'm aware the urine smelling note, and so do the dogs in my neighbourhood, everytime I wear it, they either look at me with very puzzled expressions or just bark at me from afar. LOL This juice is potent, last at least 12 hours on my skin (I have normal skin and don't use any body lotion) with great sillage. Luff it!

As one would expect from a scent built around honey, Miel de Bois is sweet but Lutens has managed to stay away from making Miel de Bois too sweet. The first notes to hit my nose were woody and resinous, notes that were soon joined by the heart of honey and beewax. The dry down still retains a dominant honeyed note that is balanced by a slightly dirty animalic note and something powdery (pallida iris?). Miel de Bois has great longevity (7+ hrs) and projects well.

Miel de Bois is definitely not a warm weather scent, I think it is more suited to cold, long dark winter nights in front of a roaring fire. This is an interesting fragrance that certainly gives honey a dominant role but I find this hard to wear.

Another Serge Lutens blockbuster, plowing its way into territory not often explored. Big, brash, and shamelessly assertive, I imagine Miel de Bois will always be a love-it-or-hate-it fragrance, though possibly a classic as well! It arrives with a blast of honey so thick and real you could drown in it, then follows that with wood notes so harsh you could get splinters in your nose. Miel de Bois is more or less linear on me, the honey and the wood jockeying back and forth for dominance, but not much tempered by anything else. Look out for hungry bears

I find the whole performance remarkable, but it’s not one for which I want to supply the stage. Some object to the bald honey here, but my issue is with the wood. There is something bitter and abrasive there that I can't tolerate. If I wear Miel de Bois long enough, I wind up with a whopper of a headache, so I’m afraid I’ll have to pass…

Outstanding sillage and longevity, which are both great if this stuff works on you.

Feral honey! Indeed a bit of fresh marijuana bud, a bit of B.O. and even... urine. And I mean that in the most positive sense of the word.

I love this fragrance, because it is complicated and keeps evolving throughout the day. It is not season dependent, woody and dry. I'm happy that this scent is part of my collection.

This litterally smells HOT at first. I have never experienced a honey note like it...more animalitic than I expected, and I LOVE it. I don't usually wear sharp woods, but they play beautifully with the honey. I do not think that I smell like a lumber yard at all. This will be saved for times when I want to feel extra sexy in my own skin.

One of my favorite things is to draw patterns and designs using drips of honey on my lover's body. Miel de Bois is exactly how her skin smells after I have licked all traces of the honey from her sweetly scented, slightly sticky skin. The scent of raw, unrefined, honey mixed with skin and saliva.

Sweet, rich and complex -- the stuff that Lutens-esque dreams are made of. Not for everyone, though -- I really recommend that you try this one first. It has -- literally -- the truest honey note I've ever smelled. (L'Occitane's is good, but not THIS good!) A must have unisex frag for any Lutens devotee. Magnificent sillage and outstanding longevity, btw.

I have this theory that a great fragrance has to have at least one "wrong", disturbing note in it, so when you try it, your first response is "what the hell". This quirky character is shared among all the great ones, from Vetiver (which I admire but will never wear) to Fahrenheit (which I proudly do) to Miel. When My girlfriend wore it, it took me some time to like it. it IS unique, at first encounter almost unwearable. Finally I got to like it on her, but on me it smells better. The weirdest thing is that I can't recognize any of the notes. Perhaps the jelly-honey opening, but that's were it ends. To me it's the first true unisex fragrance I got to know. Sadly not all Lutens fragrances are that bold.

At first sniff, I smell dark honey and headshop. Then the honey note fades and I just get headshop. It's been 2-3 hours and now it smells like headshop that hasn't opened a window in over a month. I love Chergui and Musc Ravageur, but this just isn't doing it for me at all. If you love the heavy incense/patchouli smell of a store that sells houkas, crystals and the like--this could be your favorite scent.

WOW! The opening is breathtaking—exotic woods and “ferral honey” (I love that term, SniffQ), it’s an accurate description of the vigorousness of this fragrance. Honey and wood—done in an incredibly potent way: This is the raw, fresh-out-of-the-hive honey combined with the pungently aromatic gaiac wood (oud), it vibrates with raw power and masculinity. The honey / wood accord is linear and lasts for hours—I’m not complaining about the linearity; I love the accord. When that potency finally tapers off, we are left with a wonderful wood / slightly floral dry down. The animal notes that are supposed to be in the dry down are not very strong to my nose, and the honey has ebbed to a beeswax note that blends in beautifully with the wood and iris. As opposed to the top and middle of the pyramid, the base is quite subtle. It lasts forever. Miel de Bois is a totally impressive fragrance—for me it’s a must buy, and I wouldn’t recommend buying it blind.

As you'd expect from the name, this is all honeyed woods. I love it, but it may be too cavity-inducing for some.
Lasts all day, too. Yum.

Wow!! Very eccentric fragance. Unwereable, I think. At first, smells exactly like a strepsils honey & lemon candy (you know, provide effective relief from sore throat pain and irritation, he he). Exactly.

Then, the honey note softs a bit his raw condition, and a woody note appears as base as the sweet-herbal-honeyed-unwereable smell.

I don't wanna smell like this!! Maybe eat it when I got throat irritations!!

My favourite Lutens, and one of my favourite scents ever.

A shocking, sharp start of tart honey esther. Pure and somewhat quite raw. To me, love at first sniff.
Dries down for lovely and intoxicating blend of deliciously sticky beeswax, crisp honey, with deep and medicinal Oudish woods. Lasts forever with excellent and tasty drydown.

Miel de Bois is also one of the most evocative fragrances I know. I don`t need to tell exactly what it brings to my mind, but these echoes from the childhood is after all probably the most precious thing that any fragrance could ever produce.

This is the most aggressive honey scent I've ever smelled. My entire family went, "Ack!" I think this would be the right perfume for the 3 Bears, but not for me. I love many SL scents and I applaud his courage, but this one crossed the line for me.

Feral honey with darting golden eyes caged in a raw, dark wood container for its own good. Not a fragrance for someone who wants to smell "nice" or "girly." An adventurous fragance that settles down and stops growling and attracts the curious and interesting.

I tried this a year ago, and didn't like the big brash wood note. Then this spring I sampled the entire Montale Oud line, and when I retried Miel De Bois yesterday immediately recognised the wood in this as Oud. There's no mistaking that piercing high and low, brash, rough, uric note - there's no other wood like it in perfumery.
I had thought of this as a concept fragrance before, but in actuality it's a fairly straight up Oud and Honey fragrance. My assessment has gone from thumbs down to neutral, but doesn't make me want to wear this any more eagerly - I just understand it now. I believe Montale does a better job with Oud.

The honey here is like honey alcohol or honey ether - it attacks your nose as a topnote. Don't worry though, it tames down soon enough (well, at least a little) and becomes a very natural sort of honey note: sweet and smooth but still with that sharp, tangy edge that real honey has. The wood here is like lumberyard wood. This is not pretty, fragrant, almost floral wood - this is sharp, crisp, straight from the mill wood. If you've done any construction work, you'll immediately recognize this smell. (Thanks calchic...one really can almost imagine sticking one's finger in a homemade honey pot and getting a splinter.) Of course, it lasts all day, it's got great sillage, which smells much better than the scent does smelled right on the skin. Really, it's a very nice wood and honey scent once it dries down. Crisp enough to wear in warmer weather (though probably not the hottest, most humid days of summer), and complex and sweet enough for the cooler weather. People toss around the word "masterpiece" a lot - Miel de Bois may actually live up to that term.

Miel de Bois is one of the fragrances I call a Weird Animal: You can't just walk up to one and start petting it, you have to let it come to you. It's not easy, and there's much suspicion on both sides, but once it gets comfortable with you there's nothing in the world like a Weird Animal letting you touch its fur.

This is royal-jelly-in-an-oak-box honey. Raw, wild, nearly harsh. Honest honey, not the sugar-syrup honey one might expect. And such dry, fresh wood behind it. This is what a bear's paws smell like after a Rather Profitable Day in the sun.

Absolutely love it. From concept to execution this is an utterly unique fragrance.

Quite nice in the top notes and even the middle notes, but on my skin, I do agree that in the drydown, all I could smell was animal urine. I suppose this fragrance would be OK if you kept reapplying every hour or so to keep the drydown from appearing. Serge Lutens has much more pleasing offerings, such as Chergui and Daim Blond. Not sure what he was thinking here...

I love it. The opening is a bit challenging but as it settles, the most wonderful layers are revealed. At times I'm reminded of Caron's Narcisse Noir and other times Nag Champa incense. Overall it is a comforting and sweet scent, woody and aromatic. One of my favorites from SL.

Wow, talk about unusual! Miel de Bois smells like fresh honey in a juniper container, the wood saturated with honey. Mellow gold with a lumbery edge. Wonderful!

like ipaidforthisname i also love the scent of honey(unfortunately mechant loup did NOT cut it for me!)i have so many 'honey' scents...this scent is definitely heavy on the miel..by heavy i don't mean it is a heavy fragrance...actually the opposite..a nice light,musky kind of honey
the instant it arrived i sprayed it all over..something about the fragrance of honey says 'sexy' to me. i'm not refined enough to pick up the wood notes, but i didn't buy it for them!!
strangely enough i was gardening and was bent down quite close to some alyssum i have growing and realized that "miel de bois" smells intriguingly like those little flowers!
the only thing i am unhappy with is this scent doesn't seem to last on me

This is another Lutens creation that I'm finding myself warming up to and liking more over time. The primary notes are honey, wood, beeswax, iris and hawthorn. Nothing offensive, right? But it's important to note some of the more specific qualities of some of the notes, as I think some do find them less than inviting. For one thing, the wood here can best be described in one phrase: lumber store. None of your spicy cedars, mellow balsams or rich mahoganies reside here. Not even knotty pine. Instead you get your sawdust, your freshly cut two-by-fours, even a splinter or two (okay, that's going a bit too far.) I suspect this is one of Serge's wink-wink moments - like the "hey, let's put a tuberose in a tire store" thing in Tuberose Criminelle. But here, it somehow works, at least for me. It's uniquely refreshing and also comforting (though I confess a soft spot for lumber yards - it's a childhood thing.) Okay, the other thing is the honey. If you're a honey connoisseur, then you know that there are many different kinds of honeys that occur naturally - depending, I assume, on where the bees get their pollen. Some honeys are very floral, some fruity, some even have a hint of evergreen. Well, this honey's none of those; it's more like a raw, royal jelly type, fragrant but in a distinctly musky way. An animalic honey, if you will. Some, I think, hate it; and paired with the sawdust and two-by-fours, I admit it's a little bit challenging. Yet not awful. The beeswax and iris serve as intelligent counterpoints. This one makes me think and I appreciate that.

I am a huge honey fan. Ever since I was tiny one of my favorite treats were those plastic tubes filled with honey. I’ve got a few wonderful honey based fragrances (Chergui, Mechant Loup, etc), but nothing I have smelled ever really captured the true essence of honey, the way I know and remember it. Let me start out by saying I have never smelled a fragrance like this in my entire life. This smells exactly like fresh unprocessed honey stored in a wooden jar. The honey accord in Miel de Bois is not overwhelming, heavy, or cloying; it’s a fresh and raw honey that smells as sweet as it does alive. This honey accord is balanced with a very dry wood, which also keeps Miel de Bois from being anywhere near cloying. Miel de Bois is also very long lasting. This is the best honey fragrance I have ever smelled. It’s definitely in my top 5! Wow.

The name means Honey of Wood, and the notes are white honey and dark woods and other things I did not actually smell in it. At first sniff this did not repulse me, but on me and several others the scent's honey morphed into an odor reminiscent of urine. Apparently this happens to many--so *sample* first! The honey in this scent is not the sweet warm honey in Chergui; rather it gives a slightly sweet beeswaxy smell to the dark woods. Kind of like old, expensive furniture--definitely unisex, and might work better with male chemistry. Interesting conceptually, but even if one does not react with disgust, this doesn't seem like the type of scent to inspire cries of elation at having found one's Holy Grail.