Nui Cobalt Designs: The Bees Review

Another review of Nui Cobalt's Bee's collection - this time a collection of scents from both 2020 and 2021 releases. This is slightly belated, but some of these blends have come back again so hopefully they will be brought back next year too!  

Bees on the Bayou - A dark, seductive blend for a sultry southern evening. Vines heavy with honeysuckle entwined with Easter lily, linden blossom, and neroli over a sweet foundation of pipe tobacco, pralines, and creamed honey.  

This is a dark floral spiced with tobacco - a woody richness from the smokey pipe tobacco floating over a herbal blend of neroli, thyme and rosemary and clean soapy linden blossom, brushed with a touch of sweet honey. This is a really rich, sticky dark scent - this feels like a scent out of A Streetcar Named Desire. Despite all the gourmandy notes, this isn't very sweet at all - and leans more towards the mainstream/niche scent profiles. 

Emotional Support Bee - A hug in a bottle. Ivory-blush rose petals, orange blossom honey, apple blossoms, melissa leaf, silken shea, sacred benzoin, and just a hint of calming clary sage. 

This is a gorgeous scent, a beautiful pale flush of warm tones. Opening with a beautiful rose, complimented with clear golden honey, the other floral elements just come out to delicately support the floral honey combination. This scent is a very blended scent - it's hard to pick out specific notes but the overall composition is a lovely sweet and bright honeyed floral. I also find that the honey gets a lot stronger during the wear on my skin, but I tend to amp sweetness. Surprisingly, I really love this blend. It's effortlessly chic and pretty, and the rich sweet honey keeps my gourmand loving heart captured.  

Birch Better Have My Honey - A sweet take on a traditional folk magic blend for swift payment and lasting prosperity. Whole raw honeycomb infused with dragon’s blood resin, cinnamon, bayberry bark, crushed coriander, nutmeg, black walnut, ginger root, and a subtle touch of birch bark.  

This is a gorgeous scent, it's spiced, woody and nutty - it's like foraging for berries in the forest, raw honeycombs and beeswax on porridge in wooden bowls. I love how rich and intense this is, it has that solid woody scent, spiked with warm ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon and coriander, swirled into harvested honey. This feels like the perfect autumn scent - like the spiced sister of Crone's Cottage (Nui Cobalt's Autumn collection). 

Cait Sidhe - An homage to the Fairy Cats of Celtic lore. Velvety tonka and myrrh set the stage for a midnight melange of blackberry, black currant, boysenberry, and tart cherry. Honeyed oats soften the blend and a wisp of dragon's blood boosts its magickal potency.

A surprisingly fruity scent - opening with a jungle juice mixture of cherry syrup, white wine, black currant and boysenberry, it's strangely bubbly and fun until dry down. The myrrh and the resin blooms into a darker, more complex pairing, with a touch of honey. I didn't quite get oats with this scent as the fruity notes were a little louder - this blend felt like a darker twist on Drunk Pumpkin (Nui Cobalt's Autumn collection), though I think I prefer the spiced mixture of apple cider over the harsher cherry and dry white wine combination here as alcohol doesn't play too well on my skin. 

Queen Bee - Creamy white gardenia and fluffy whipped honey.

I was recommended this scent by u/Jeanlucille - this is a simple pretty blend of fruity white gardenia and a touch of creamy whipped honey. The honey in this blend is incredibly creamy - it has a rich, lactonic quality, and paired with the gardenia, it's richer and more sticky than its counterparts in any other blend with honey in it. For me, I found the gardenia surprisingly fruity as well, it has a soft velvety quality with hint of bergamot like sharpness, and it reminded me a little of honeysuckle as well. 

Busy Bee - A blend of Oolong and Tibetan black tea with peach blossom honey, cardamom, and clove, sharpened with pink peppercorn and dry oakwood.

This is incredibly woody and rich - in the vial is has a more tannic tea like quality but once it hits the skin, it's all cardamom and crushed clove, with a sprinkle of dry cracked peppercorn. The peach blossom honey is very subtle, but it comes through a little while after wear, just a touch of fruity sweetness (if you're familiar with NCD's Peach Blossom blend, it's definitely one you can pick up after a while but it's hard to find if you haven't smelt it before.) I like the spiced fruity profile of this scent, although the tea notes I spotted in the vial are sadly absent on my skin. 

Disclaimer: Queen Bee and Busy Bee were purchased with my own money. The other scents were sent for review. I was not sponsored for this review or affiliated with this brand, and all opinions are my own, and do not reflect the brand's opinions or interests.