L’Occitane Miel & Vanille

When I did my post on oddball vanillas recently, a reader in the UK informed me that there was a new scent at L’Occitane – Miel & Vanille (“honey and vanilla,”) not to be confused with their regularly stocked honey-lemon fragrance (Miel & Citron) with which I’m familiar.  A search locally and through the US, including their website, produced absolutely nothing about Miel & Vanille, so I’m assuming it was exclusive either to the UK specifically or to Europe.  Anyway, I managed to get my mitts on some, because I like L’Occitane, and Honey-Vanilla sounded pretty darn perfect to me right now.

The only notes I can find are via Fragrantica: “a sparkling and sweet fragrance that blends fresh and gourmet aromas. Top notes are Italian lemon and cinnamon. The heart of honey from Provence and delicious caramel is placed at the base of vanilla and patchouli. Available as EDT.”

How is it?  Yummy, and not anywhere as sweet as you might think, looking at those notes.  I definitely get the citrus at the top, making it smell for a minute or two sort of like the honey-lemon one; I wouldn’t have identified “cinnamon” but it’s got a nice spiciness to it that stays around through the whole scent and helps keep it from being too cloying.  The thought of caramel makes me queasy, and I’m happy to report that through repeated testings I can’t pick it out at all.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of vanilla, over a base that is spicy-woody (I assume that’s the patchouli.)  It’s clean-smelling but not “fresh” in the sense of some modern-aquatic note.  It has that L’Occitane vibe – not the most complex scent on the market, but really pleasant, and it doesn’t smell like something I’d get hit with by the ladies at Macy’s.  It has average lasting power, about what I’d expect from the notes.  It stays, musky and honeyed and spicy, on the sleeves of my sweater for about a day.  I’m not big on gender-lines in fragrance in the first place, but I think a man could totally get away with this.  It doesn’t smell like cake batter and the woodiness shines through.

So, where can you get it?  Well, as far as I can determine, you can’t.  It must have been available abroad for about two minutes, maybe over the holidays as an LE?, and I’ve been checking periodically and don’t even see it on eBay international.  Googling didn’t come up with anything.  If one of you has a hot source you feel like sharing in comments, feel free to do so.

PS  Real life (work and non-work) has been interfering with my perfumage; no doubt some of you have noticed I’m posting less.  Nothing dire, but for the time being my time online, including blogging, is pretty limited.