lestamore

I recently had a baby. When I was pregnant, I had PICA and I craved chewing ice. I thought about it constantly. After the baby was born, the craving went away, and chomping ice lost it's intense appeal. But the smell of this stuff appeals just like the ice used to. I can't explain it better than that. It's strangely refreshing, I can almost feel the water in my throat, but there is a magic that ice doesn't have any more, a sweetness that I honestly can't get enough of. I'm pretty bummed that I only have the one sample and it's out of stock.

I have been wearing this for the last few days and it has definitely grown on me. My overall impression the first time I wore it was pennies. I guess that is the penny magic. But I thought it smelled like poker night when we dump out the huge jar of change and pick out the silver coins from the pennies. I thought that was appropriate because that is what the midnight carnival is all about, exploitation of the mythical for mere metal, dross, prosaic currency in the face of the mystical. But the more I wear it, the more I get the mystical as well. There is definitely sweet smoke, I couldn't pick out the patchouli right away which is good. My patchouli hating boyfriend didn't mind it either despite obviously having that patchouli smokiness. But I do get the myrrh, I get get an almost campfire woodsmoke tang, with the cacao jumping up occasionally and making the pennies and myrrh bitterness into something sweeter, deeper and more lovely. The wood is definitely there in the background too although, maybe I am conflating the teak and the lavender into a slightly camphorous back of the closet type smell. And again, I don't really smell flowers, but the whole thing has a definite sweetness that is fresh and not cloying. When it dries down, I do get a deep creamy narcissus and spice sweetness and at least for me it lasted forever and remained even overnight. This wasn't on my list of must haves, but the more I wear it, the more I am thinking of adding it.

I put this on first thing in the morning and didn't like it. I felt like I couldn't really smell much except the feeling of my nose tickling, and I had given up on it after about a half hour. But then I had breakfast and some ice tea and I guess it cleared my palate or something because I started to be more interested in the scent on my wrist and eventually put more on so I could get another opinion of how it smells at the beginning. This time, it seemed quite different, spicy and clovey, still a bit nose tickly, which could well be the dust, and a tiny bit sweet. After a while longer I started to pick out the fruit, which is pretty subtle. Almost more like blackcurrent squash than juice, kindof syrupy and shallow (while still lovely and refreshing) rather than anything tangy or really fruity. Someone mentioned port wine which I can agree with. The clove was definitely pretty intense at the beginning, and seemed almost too strong. But now that it has gone down a bit, I like it a lot better. It reminds me of a certain summer full of road trips and medieval re-enactment: rare self-imported blackcurrent squash, and spicy sekanjabin mixed in whimsically ill-advised cocktails and consumed on blankets spread out in the sun as we gossiped and watched all the athletic young men swordfighting in armor. A treasured memory. I wonder if I could make a clove and blackcurrent carbonated beverage or popsicle this summer.