Tom Ford's exclusive line of top-shelf EDPs is prohibitively expensive, but Lost Cherry (2018) smells like money. Well, let me rephrase that: It smells like what people think money smells like nowadays. Fancy top notes, followed by slightly less fancy heart notes, followed by an eternal base of fruity musks. Its conglomeration of esters and aldehydes eventually blurs into a big beautiful smack of lipstick and feminine talc, which I thought I'd hate, but I actually think is pretty neat. You could have fun with something like this.
Of rare interest to me is the top notes here, which are photorealistic maraschino cherry, with just a splash of amaretto. It's a burst of juicy-sweet and dry-bitter that plays with my senses in a way that offsets the illusion of real Luxardo cherries with cultural connotations of sweets and liqueurs, a veritable Etruscan daydream. While my imagination drifts to a veranda overlooking a villa in Tuscany, my nose becomes hyper-focused on the intense musks that carry it all, and suddenly (within five minutes) the party's over, and perfumey perfume is in the air. But this potentially disappointing development doesn't last.
An hour into the fragrance, and a great big tobacco leaf appears, which then elicits imagery of Flatiron, New York City, and its eighty year-old ragas with their magnified bifocals hand-rolling cigars on tables supported by empty olive barrels. There's just something so Italian about Lost Cherry, even with all the innuendo and Tom Ford swagger accounted for, that I can't help but like it. My girlfriend gave it a sniff of approval, saying it smelled good. When I told her the price, she winced and said, "Not that good." And that's usually the issue with Ford's stuff. Good, but not great. Close, but no cigar.