Lea by Lea St Barth

The first minutes I get the unpleasant play-doh smell that others have mentioned. Fortunately it disappears and I get a warm and rich vanilla. Many other vanilla scents have additional notes to make the scent more interesting, like the number of different vanillas from La Maison de la Vanille. Lea is not like that: here's nothing added in order to spice it up, or twist it, or make it more of a gourmand. It's just vanilla. A simple scent? Yes. Suave? Oh indeed!

On Luckyscent you find some reviews saying this smells like Bath and Body Works Vanilla. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Léa is beyond compare, yet it seems familiar but one cannot explain. Just lovely vanilla and musk, maybe a hint of cocoa? You should try yourself ; ).

A simple almondy vanilla. You get at first a bitter and sweet but slightly boozy almond, that develop to a creamy musky vanilla dridown. While i found it cozy, I found it simple and I don't know it this could stand out from another musk vanillas. A thumbs neutral on this one.

Lea strikes me as achingly sweet. The main course is a very creamy, milky sweet vanilla, which comes across as ever so slightly synthetic - like the vanilla in cheap scented candles. In fact, it reminds me most irresistibly of a body spray I used to own when I was 14 or so.
I don't get any almonds, sadly.

Hands down my favourite vanilla frag ever. It's not complex, it's not edgy, it's a delicious frothy, yummy milkshake in a midwestern diner compared to a bottle of expensive vintage wine at El Bulli, but damn, do I love milkshakes! This frag effortlessly skates the line between too-thin vanilla (I'll use Tihota as an example of this, to my nose) and too-thick/cloying/overly sweet/cheap vanilla. The almond is gorgeous and complimentary. Drydown is the best - this needs about 10 mins to calm down on my skin and settle into itself.

Lea is simple perfection and I love it.

I have on Lea "Extreme". It is a "mmmmmm" frarance for me. A pure comfort scent to wear snuggled up on a Sunday morning. This is not a perfume that I could feel dressed in. It is fuzzy slipper fare.

Very sweet, vanilla, almond, almost milk chocolate. Too sweet for me, too much like candy. I won't say it smells bad, I just would not enjoy wearing it for long.

For me Lea has an gorgeous, very brief 'middle stage', if I can call it that, in which I can smell white chocolate, vanilla and almond. Sadly, within half an hour of applying only a bland vanilla/almond whisper remains.
It's not bad but there are other vanilla scents I prefer.

This isn't distinctive enough on my skin. It produces a "barely there" whisper of vanilla- scented almond. Almost the sort of scent a child could wear.

Lea is certainly a pretty fragrance, but it's utterly boring on my skin. It doesn't create any particular mood but it is one of the nicest vanilla fragrances I've owned. I prefer La Maison de la Vanilles, though, when I have vanilla cravings as their Bourbon Vanilla drydown is much more appealing to me than the kitchen vanilla extract smell of Lea. Lea smells like pure vanilla extract mixed with pure almond extract; definitely a nice smell, but not one I want to wear.