Tom Ford: Lost Cherry
Whiskey and Chapstick: An Ode to 20/20 Hindsight
A creamy, indolic jasmine sambaac scent with a cherry on top.
Tom Ford has a penchant for sexualizing titles, which can go a long way towards towards influencing how a scent comes off.
Lost Cherry, though, has a split personality that feels like early adulthood blunders: maybe sexy, but also a little awkward (just when you thought the worst of adolescence was behind you!)…it looks a lot more glamorous and a lot less glamorous 20 years later.
Profile-wise, Lost Cherry can be paradoxical like that. Firstly, it’s softly creamy, the way a lot of Japanese incense is, and that must be due to the sandalwood and tonka bean. It’s not your typical tobacco cherry fragrance. For me, the cherry here is more akin to a chapstick product aimed at a very young demographic (think Lipsmackers). The thing is, a drugstore chapstick would rarely include the other notes in this composition, so I’m not saying this is exactly a chapstick, but the cherry cream aspect alone might be.
But there are multiple cherry accords in this, and each is unique in how it affects the overall tone. One of them is a heavier liqueur that darkens everything up in a very grown up way, and you imagine bold crystal whiskey tumblers and leather armchairs. This is its masculine cologne side, but make no mistake that this scent is truly unisex.
The various woods, resins and balsams ensure this is decidedly NOT a flippant fruit fragrance, but also not an introspective or meditative one. Instead, they serve as a bold juxtaposition to the soft creaminess.
The almond is apparent and nutty, and that nuttiness, instead of an amaretto note, adds a dry, almost paper-like smell, like old books. It once again brings up the question about whether this scent was purposely meant to rouse feelings of…not quite nostalgia, but more like the Welsh word, “hiraeth.”
“Hiraeth - a profound longing for a time, place, or state of being that is no longer attainable, often tied to a sense of purity or innocence.”
It’s only my guess, but I imagine this scent might be purposely geared toward mixed feelings. Tom Ford's take seems to be “Just go with it—fragrances are risk-free re-livings of whatever you want.”
