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| Tiny Ice Bees - what's all the buzz about? |
Full size: 8mL amber glass bottle for $8.00 USD, 1/2 dram ITSY-bitsy vial for $6.00
I wove a wisp of damp silk—crisp, delicate, ozoney, watery—with a subtle splash of pineapple and tart green orange and grapefruit. No honey. Come on; that’s predictable. This is a thing that happened in the dead of terrible winter.
Tiny Ice Bees conjures up some peculiar mental imagery. I think bees fall squarely into the "made better by being tiny" category. I remember my younger sister becoming visibly agitated upon discovering the Pokemon Beedrill was way, way larger than she thought when watching the cartoon ("This is definitely not cute anymore, ew!") and we both agreed that anything with stingers should not be allowed to grow so large. So what do tiny ice bees do? Prick you with frosty little icicle stingers? Do they melt upon contact? Do their stings freeze over cause your skin to become frostbitten?
Evonne somehow tapped into everything I look for in a perfume with that description. Splashy, tart fruits with some dainty feminine buzzwords? Yes please! But does Tiny Ice Bees live up to the hype?
I initially expected this to be like a lighter, fruitier version of Haus of Gloi's Spider Silk, but this was not the case. The opening top notes are my absolute favorite part - fresh, almost tropical but not syrupy. It smells pinkish-yellow (if colors had a fragrance), light as air and breezy. I wish I could capture this part and have it stay on my skin all day, but it's barely a whisper and gone after 10 minutes. What's left behind is startlingly similar to Darling Clandestine's winter exclusive Vortex. In fact, when I first tested Tiny Ice Bees, it had been months since I wore Vortex and thought it was identical. Tiny Ice Bees is lighter and less powdery with a faint almost-but-not-quite floral undertone.
Duration: Unlike Vortex, Tiny Ice Bees is remarkably fragile. Even when I apply copious amounts - and since I love the top notes I do apply a ton in hopes I can enjoy them longer - my nose detects nothing five hours later. I'd even say this is the weakest Darling Clandestine fragrance in my collection. I'm not sure what's missing that could help better anchor this fragrance, but it would be nice if it lasted longer.
Score: 2.5/5
I had a really challenging time rating Tiny Ice Bees. I so very, very much love the opening tope notes. They're beautiful! Feminine, soft and airy, maybe even a teeny bit flirty, it's a combination of all the things I enjoy in a daily perfume. But they evaporate so fast, and what's left behind is really similar to Vortex. If I had to choose, I'd rather a larger sized bottle of Tiny Ice Bees instead of Vortex, but neither of them I reach for that frequently.
My headcanon is that the "thing that happened in the dead of terrible winter" was the polar vortex swooping in and freezing a hive of industrious bees in the middle of their workday. They never knew what hit them! Those fleeting top notes are just an echo of a day's work flitting between fruits and flowers and all that's left behind are frozen tiny ice bees.
I initially expected this to be like a lighter, fruitier version of Haus of Gloi's Spider Silk, but this was not the case. The opening top notes are my absolute favorite part - fresh, almost tropical but not syrupy. It smells pinkish-yellow (if colors had a fragrance), light as air and breezy. I wish I could capture this part and have it stay on my skin all day, but it's barely a whisper and gone after 10 minutes. What's left behind is startlingly similar to Darling Clandestine's winter exclusive Vortex. In fact, when I first tested Tiny Ice Bees, it had been months since I wore Vortex and thought it was identical. Tiny Ice Bees is lighter and less powdery with a faint almost-but-not-quite floral undertone.
Duration: Unlike Vortex, Tiny Ice Bees is remarkably fragile. Even when I apply copious amounts - and since I love the top notes I do apply a ton in hopes I can enjoy them longer - my nose detects nothing five hours later. I'd even say this is the weakest Darling Clandestine fragrance in my collection. I'm not sure what's missing that could help better anchor this fragrance, but it would be nice if it lasted longer.
Score: 2.5/5
I had a really challenging time rating Tiny Ice Bees. I so very, very much love the opening tope notes. They're beautiful! Feminine, soft and airy, maybe even a teeny bit flirty, it's a combination of all the things I enjoy in a daily perfume. But they evaporate so fast, and what's left behind is really similar to Vortex. If I had to choose, I'd rather a larger sized bottle of Tiny Ice Bees instead of Vortex, but neither of them I reach for that frequently.
My headcanon is that the "thing that happened in the dead of terrible winter" was the polar vortex swooping in and freezing a hive of industrious bees in the middle of their workday. They never knew what hit them! Those fleeting top notes are just an echo of a day's work flitting between fruits and flowers and all that's left behind are frozen tiny ice bees.
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