Escada Cherry in the Air (2013) {Perfume Review}
Escada Cherry in the Air is the latest limited-edition for summer 2013 aiming young women in priority. Update: As of summer 2014, the fragrance is still available at Sephora.
Escada are self-aware of their impact as they note that each year the annual edition is eagerly awaited by loyal fans, a fact which seems confirmed by enthusing online comments. Escada also stress that cherry is a very fashionable note for spring-summer 2013.
We can measure the influence of bestselling La Petite Robe Noire by Guerlain with its black cherry note which has turned cherry into a style statement. Like other trendy perfumes borrowing from a popular floral Asian theme, it is also reportedly inspired by the "soft and gourmand scent of cherry blossoms".
Perfume Notes: Black cherry, raspberry, mandarin / gardenia petals, coconut orchid, vanilla, guimauve / sandalwood, oak wood, musk, sueded leather...
The eau de toilette opens on a note of both very juicy and lactonic, i.e., milky cherry.
If you tap into the candy memories of a French kid, it will make you think immediately of a Krema bonbon, chewy, soft, elastic and sweet under the tooth, with a burst of juice. When applied more generously, the fragrance becomes more like the scent a fruit-salad necklace might smell of, that is more indefinite. There is something Barbie-ish too to the perfume.
It is as if the purpose of the fragrance was to hit on a string of nostalgic sweet notes including synthetic caramel and plastic: chewy candies, Del Monte fruit salad at breakfast, a glass of strawberry milk next to a Fiesta breakfast bowl, Barbie doll head dipped into said strawberry glass milk in a moment of whimsy.
Then, the perfume seems to make a disappearing act - all the regressive fragrance notes settle down to the point of near-extinction; well, we knew it had a lot to do with the past. For a few minutes you were allowed to smell like a toddler again. Now, it smells even more regresssive as the dominant accord becomes that of something like baby skin brushed with warm milk. Methinks we hear a burp of gratitude in the background.
The skin note thrums a milky range of notes. Now it smells also of Dulce de Leche, but nothing too over-calorific.
If we had to sum up the concept of the fragrance it would be that it behaves like a milky musk with a tip of the hat in the direction of gardenia perfume oils. The scent becomes very close to the skin very quickly. There are no stories here except story-book-time notes like warm milk. In spite of the name of the blend, the cherry accord is not very obvious, except in the beginning.
On the other hand, what slowly emerges is a tropical floral gardenia accord a bit - even a lot - à la Monyette Paris, a fragrance which was voted a top 5 cult perfume by several beauty magazines in its heyday, i.e., ca. 2007. It's a subdued Monyette Paris with its suggestion of incense and creamy Tahitian gardenia via the detour of cherries up in the air (more than alighting for very long on the skin). Escada did point out that the scent is "a light and airy reinvention of this fruit which irresistible flavor it captures while recreating the joie de vivre and the carefree attitude that make up the spirit of Escada."
This seasonal scent is a reenactment brand-wise of Escada's summery sweet-milky signature, only made lighter and more like a clean skin musk with gardenia perfume oil than a syrupy sweet lactonic fruity-floral as they are sometimes - often in fact - inclined to do.
It is also a scent about a multi-cultural crossroads with this suggestion - more than the smell - of a transparent Japanese cherry blossom lightening up the perennial creamy American gardenia perfume while reinforcing the global youth appeal of milky-fruity-floral accords.
