Cherry
Sweet, juicy red fruit with a candy-like, sometimes almondy edge.
You may know it from Cherry sweets or cherry pie filling
Where it comes from
Usually built from aroma chemicals; cherries yield little useful fragrant extract.
Worth knowing
It rarely smells like a fresh cherry straight from the tree.
About cherry
Nearly all of what perfumery calls cherry traces back to one molecule. A glossary from the brand Premiere Peau says the note is defined almost entirely by benzaldehyde, which smells of bitter almond and cherry. Nature makes it too, since benzaldehyde forms when amygdalin from cherry and other stone-fruit seeds breaks down.
The fruit itself gives a perfumer very little to work with, because it yields little aromatic oil. The same glossary adds that no natural cherry extraction is standard in perfumery and that cherry accords are built entirely from synthetic materials: benzaldehyde, para-tolualdehyde, heliotropin, anisic aldehyde and supporting esters. Benzaldehyde can be taken from bitter almonds or cherry laurel leaves, but it is far more often made from toluene. The synthetic version is also the usual flavour in imitation almond extract and turns up in cherry-flavoured sodas.
On skin the accord changes as it dries. It opens with a sharp bite of bitter almond and cherry pit, then the aldehydic edge softens and heliotropin takes over with a creamy, vanilla-cherry warmth. Heliotropin, also called piperonal, has a faint cherry edge of its own. Fittig first prepared it in 1869 by breaking down safrole.
The result tends to reference maraschino cherries, cherry cough syrup and cherry tobacco rather than an orchard. Cherry blossom is a separate subject, tied to the Prunus tree and, in Japan, to renewal and the transience of beauty.
Trade press credits Tom Ford Lost Cherry, from 2018 and composed by Givaudan perfumer Louise Turner, with pushing the note into the mainstream. Its listed notes include bitter almond, black cherry and cherry liqueur. One trade magazine now says cherry has taken over vanilla's old job as a signature note, at every price point.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Cherry in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Cherry most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Cherry
Fragrances that list it in their notes, most-rated first.
Houses that use it most
Ranked by how many of their well-known fragrances list Cherry.