Is that Lust in your panties or are you just happy to see me?: Lush 'Lust' Review

 Ever since I was 19 and read Little Birds by Anais Nin for the first time, I've focused my life on the erotic. I've become a true sensualist--I tongue oysters before i eat them to savor the briny taste,  the search for a Little Drink to accompany my errands is an Odyssey just so I can let it drip down my chin as I drink it, I prefer masturbation to be a fully nude process.

I find ways to engage my senses. And nothing is more sensory overload than Lush's 'Lust'.

The first time I ever sprayed it was on a hot day in New Orleans. The public transit was free so me and my best friend Bee hit up the French Quarter. It was packed, Mardi Gras season, bodies stuck together as the puppy parade went by and we ended up in the Lush store. Lust is a fragrance I knew well--okay I knew of it. And it was something pg a legend to me. I heard it stunk to high heavens, that it smelled like a girl's locker room, that it was almost offensive in its potency.

I knew I had to try it, so I did. One good spray on my wrist right in the middle of the store and dear God I was gagged. Or I did gag I really can't remember, all I remember was I got dizzy and Bee's face scrunched in confusion. As we walked to the pizza store she walked slightly upwind of me and to the side, all she could say was "I can smell you from here."

(me around that time)

It'd be almost two years before I smelled again, this time in the room of a friend of a friend before a night out and I'm not sure if it's because my nose evolved or her bottle was older and more saturated but this time when I smelled it I couldn't get enough. I was intrigued before but it was intoxicating now. Perhaps the fact that it was winter helped but it was this raunchy, yet beautiful and almost glamorous jasmine scent.

(me the winter i rediscovered it. i chopped all my hair off that same morning.)

At that moment I resigned myself to getting my own. This time though, I settled on the solid perfume as I only have one full bottle on my wish list currently.'

This time my journey was similar to the first, an unseasonably warm day in Chicago I spent most my time backed in traffic. By the time I got to the Lush store and circled for a park (that I luckily and maybe illegally? got that was on the same street as the building) I was hot, irritated and anxious about getting my car towed.

I peetered around a bit, touched the different bath bombs and shower steamers. Played at getting a soap, all so I didn't look like a woman on a mission but I was.

I sniffed some other scents (taking note of Rose Jam which was a sweeter, brighter sister of my beloved Accrodisiaque by Versatile Paris), but I knew I wanted Lust. And after trying the solid perfume on again I was overwhelmed.

This is what I loved, this is what I wanted. And God does it kind of fucking stink.

Now having applied the solid version all over my body in the car with the a/c on, I can positively confirm that yeah Lust smells like a hormonal toilet. 

It smells like being 13 and horny. You're shaky legged and kind of disgusted with yourself but shameless all at the same time. The object of your desire is a disgruntled old man with grey in his beard and you fantasize about him kidnapping you and in that fantasy you/re chained up in his basement smelling like sweat fear and arousal. Each attempt to seduce him of course fails because you reek like a newborn puppy.

It's perfect. It's an aphrodisiac if the man who approached me drunk and stumbling, declaring his love for me 3 seconds after I reapplied has anything to say about it.

It really truly blooms on sweaty skin, the jasmine unfurling to emit an aroma so intense I understand why virgins were prohibited from coming near the flower. My new proclivity to rose notes has caused me to pick up on the rosy notes underneath that I didn't pick up the first time. It really does sort of smell like sweat. There's a robustness to the scent that I love, it's full bodied and want's your attention but she still plays well with others as I've worn this alone as well as layered with other scents. Lust is everything I love about a floral, it's not petals floating in water, but the full bodied bushel, something I think it missing from a lot of the floral scent's I've tried. 

Too many florals are scared to be florals, hence the many peony-rose-lychee abominations that have clawed at my throat as of late.

Lust is not an easy or delicate perfume at all. She's in your face, in fact she's shoving your face in her sweaty bosom. But she's beautiful, and wild and everything you want to be.