Cherry Almond

Cherry Almond does exactly what its name says, which is both its strength and its limit. Cherry and almond open together and stay locked together, a pairing that reads as marzipan, glace cherry and a faint whiff of cherry cough syrup depending on your tolerance for the combination. It is the single most fashionable accord in women's fragrance of the last few years and this is a budget interpretation of it, arriving well after the houses that made it popular. The heart adds tonka bean, Peru balsam and rose. Peru balsam is the note worth pointing out: it brings a warm, slightly smoky, cinnamon-tinged resin that gives the fragrance more backbone than the fruit-and-nut opening promises, and rose keeps a floral thread running through so it does not become purely edible. The base is where it gets crowded, with benzoin, coconut, sandalwood, cedar and a further dose of almond all listed. In practice this reads as a creamy, sweet, faintly woody drydown rather than as five distinguishable materials. Performance is what you would expect from a 30 mL mini spray: three to four hours, close to the skin. Autumn and winter only. If you like the cherry-almond style and do not want to spend properly on it, this is a cheap way to find out.