Lea St Barth is by Calypso St. Barth, and the notes include almond, vanilla, and musk. Background information on the Calypso St. Barth line is scarce, but it seems to be a boutique on the Caribbean island of St. Barthelemy, not to be confused with Christiane Celle’s Calypso, which also hails from St. Barth. The island is also home to Ligne St. Barth. There must be something in the water there that inspires fragrance creation, or perhaps it is just the island’s status as stomping grounds for the rich and famous; W Magazine notes that it is “a Caribbean paradise where they can bask on the beach (with other people just as rich) and score impossible-to-find Hermes bags” (11/1/2004).
Anyway, back to Lea. The top notes are very nearly a dead ringer for almond extract. Vanilla extract joins in fairly quickly, and for a brief time, it smells very much like those crunchy little Amaretti cookies topped with sugar. After that, it softens and gets milky-powdery and a bit less foody. There is lots of very clean (almost soapy clean) musk and the tiniest blur of sheer florals. It gets warmer the longer it is on skin, and after an hour or so, there is a subdued undertone of dry cocoa powder…
