Sérénade aux Fraises

I received this as a lovely bonus sample when I purchased a sample bundle off Mercari. I was not expecting my favorite of all of the samples to be the one I had never purchased or intended to receive. This is such an amazing, flirty, jammy, strawberry perfume. If you love gourmand/sweet scents that are more jammy/boozy/mature, then you will ADORE Serenade. The strawberry and rose come out in a burst that fills your nose! It's sweet but light, not too cloying. The violet leaf and passionfruit help too balance and prevent the scent from being too sweet. The plum joins towards the transition to the middle, and that's where fleeting whiffs of the rose becomes more prominent. The musk starts to peek out during the heart phase of this lovely fragrance, and yet the strawberry manages to stay consistent throughout this fragrance in a way that really surprises me! The drydown is a lovely finish of sweet, medicinal oud, sandalwood, and vanilla. The strawberry and plum softly whispering in the background, still there and still tangible. I cannot wait to get my hands on this incredible scent once Kyse restocks.

Doesn’t smell what the notes represent to be honest. Lots of people recommend this as an alternative to Burberry Her or for those looking for something that represents a strawberry milkshake. It doesn’t qualify as an option for neither. I like Serenade honestly, but I sold my bottle because it was just okay and I only keep Loves in my fragrance collection. If you are familiar with washing your hair with the original Herbal Essences, then step out of the shower and your hair keeps the scent for hours.. That is Serenade bottled up. It is not particularly strawberry dominant to me, it’s just fruity and fresh and clean and I think this could be really popular with the young crowd if it gained in popularity. So when you see those creamy, vanilla notes listed, don’t fall for it. One that is berries and whipped cream and spoonfuls of sugar is Signorina Misteriosa. Serenade is fruity and light. Unless you like the idea of a fragrance that smells like Herbal Essences lingering in your hair after a shower, I suggest a 2 mL sample first.

Just getting my second 6ml sample bottle of this, I went thru my last one in less than 3 weeks which says a lot since it’s very strong (to me) in both silage, projection and even longevity. You have to not let yourself take a deep sniff of this until around the 10 minute mark, and that is where the magic begins. It’s extremely strawberry forward for a good hour or so then deepens and smooths itself out to a creamy and dreamy little dessert. I’ve tried about 3/4 of the Kyse catalog and I’ve grown to like and even love a good portion of my samples. If you love gourmands try these: Delizia di Marshmallow - my absolute #1 from this house and probably #3 overall of all my other fragrances (designer, niche and so on) Praline Au Caramel - supposed to closely mirror Sol De Janeiro Bum Bum Cream original, and it does but good lord it is so much richer, sweeter and longer lasting BonBon A La Vanille - Extrait strength grown up gourmand of rich vanilla with just enough sweet and savory

Sotd: Kyse Strawberry Serenade. A collaboration with fragrance reviewer Joseph Sagona. Sagona lends his successful main stream focus to this fruity floral gourmand entry from Kyse. SS opens up with a big, ripe strawberry and a fresh dewey violet leaf for freshness. The violet leaf keeps Serenade from veering into a strawberry shampoo cliche. Soon a big dollop of sweet cream adds richness and hard to detect plum adds depth. The Moroccan rose signals the heart as the Tahitian Vanilla lends an exotic gourmand edge. The warm musk and black oud in the drydown brings an unexpected surprise and sensuality to SS. A very on trend fragrance at the moment, reminding me of the popular 70s strawberry fragrance 'Babe' by Faberge. A lot of us secretly long for a strawberry fragrance that does not descend into teenybopper strawberry shortcake dolls. Strawberry Serenade is sexy, playful, and bound to revamp an evil villanesses reputation.

Primarily strawberry, but the other notes are still detectable. This house does gourmands like no other. When I first smelled it, I thought it smelled like a strawberry soda, almost effervescent. I'm currently stuck on Kyse's Delizia de Marshmallow as my personal fragrance. However, I'm putting this one on tissue paper, then putting the tissue paper in my desk drawers at work so whenever I open my drawer I get a whiff. Anything to make my day at the office more luxurious and pleasant! I don't usually layer fragrances, but this one layers REALLY well with chocolate scents. But then again, who doesn't love strawberries and chocolate... Right now I'm stuck on vanilla for personal fragrance (I go in cycles) but I like this enough, I will probably order it in the foaming bath soap.

Wafts of strawberry jam hover above a creamy, powdery base in this homemade eau de parfum, launched in 2020. Naturally sweet, fully ripened berries (not tart!) remain undeviatingly pure, like a single, sustained violin chord. Sérénade aux Fraises evokes scenes of the Fête de la Fraise on the Côte d'Azur or picnicking on a Provençal tablecloth with bowls of berries and cream. A soft feminine fragrance that even a child could wear.✿ Scent family: Fruity Gourmand Longevity on me: long-lasting

This is a fun scent! It is a jammy strawberry with a tiny bit of rose. Everytime I smell this it immediately conjures up images of waffles topped with strawberry syrup and whipped cream at Sunday brunch. It has an underlying musk note that gives it an elevated grownup feel. Kyse always makes gourmands fun, irreverent, playful. I am a fan!

It is like soft strawberry whipped cream. Woody notes are subtle but there. I absolutely adore!

This is a fun scent, and I would say it isn't trying to be anything but. Reminds me a lot of strawberry kiwi juice boxes from when I was a kid, there's something a bit tart in there and it isn't all that sweet for the genre. I find it a little bit powdery after a few hours, in the way pixi stix smell powdery. I wouldn't sample this expecting the most delectable, true to life dessert; rather for an elevated body spray experience. Fairly priced and would make a good gift for a kid. It lasts a reasonable amount of time and throws decently without giving me a headache.

I get more tartness than lactonic, like the fruity candy Sweet tarts. Powdery, sweet and tart. Reminds me of Profumum Roma Vanitas, but more linear and slightly more sour. It doesn't read "strawberry" to me, just fruit tarts. I'm proud to say I just finished up my bottle, but won't be getting another as I have a lot of perfumes in my collection with this similar profile. Thankfully I do not get the cough syrup note that others are getting. Edit: As it dries down, it does get a little creamy.

This reminds me of B&B Strawberry Poundcake and Strawberry Rhubarb body lotion by Eminence, but with a little something extra as it dries down, perhaps the musk or sandalwood? It's cozy and stays very close to the skin on me. It's a friendly, easy-going scent that I enjoyed wearing as a bedtime scent. I don't know if I'd buy a full bottle since it does smell like Strawberry Poundcake, but this is one of the few strawberry perfumes that I actually enjoy.

Chocolate-covered-strawberries. Very artificial smelling at first but dries down to a more pleasant creamy/tangy smell like a meringue. I'd like it better if the chocolate was more toned down and there was more strawberries and cream. I guess I'm getting a chocolate accord from the fruity & woody note mixture. I smell no jam, no hookah, no florals at all. Smells very young and is probably wonderful on the right person.

This would be so much better if you plucked the plum right out of this! It starts off so light & airy, sweet, slightly powdery. Then the plum drags it down to a too-syrupy place that just doesn’t work with the rest of the notes. The syrupy element and the airiness are at odds with eachother and that turns it into just a “like” for me, but it had the potential to be so much better

181 This is a pleasant tart and sweet strawberry scent, lovely going on. Unfortunately, it goes to dusty metallic dry down far too fast. I’ll keep looking for my strawberry, unless something changes here. 6/10-wish it didn’t have that dusty metallic dry down and was stronger. Would not repurchase.

this is lovely. to me, it smells exactly like those chocolates with the strawberry cream inside that you get in the valentine’s day sets from the drug store. pleasantly surprised

smells exactly like the super ripe/macerated strawberries inside a vanilla cake with vanilla custard. to me its a little too ripe i get an alcohol note but i still like it

Smells like strawberry poundcake mixed with Mukhallat Montale (but with slightly less urinal cake). No tartness here at all.

Another year, another batch of Kyse samples - it's becoming a kind of tradition for me, and I love it! This year I couldn't even wait for fall, which could cause problems since the colder seasons are definitely the best time for these often over-the-top gourmands, but luckily this exceptionally cold period in June serves my purpose as well. My first sample of the year is a bit of a disappointment, though. I don't know what I was expecting, because deep down I don't think it's possible to create a good perfume smelling of a strawberry pastry, not even one that's "good for a guilty pleasure gourmand", which is the category Kyse is the undisputed king of. However appealing the idea sounds in theory, in practise it just winds up smelling slightly synthetic, extremely sweet in a rather unbalanced way, and just generally a little "off", and that's the case with this one as well. In the opening it's all strawberry bubblicious, which I like (although I would never wear it outside the house), but I can get the same effect from Yves Rocher's strawberry perfume which I already have and which is even cheaper than this one (and slightly less synthetic-smelling to boot) . In the end it does end up nicely gourmand-vanillic, but that drydown is the most generic part of the development, and I can get it from many other scents (including ones from Kyse) where I like the opening better. And the middle part where the strawberry meets the creamy vanilla, and which sounds so deliciously pastry-like in theory, just kind of clashes in practice. This sounds more negative than I meant it to be; I do still kind of like this, but just not enough to consider adding it to my permanent collection after sampling. But that's not a bad thing, considering I have 7 Kyse samples still to test, all of them very promising!

Synthetic strawberry. Have yet to find a natural smelling strawberry. This reminds me heavily of Panah london’s strawberry delight minus the overwhelming chocolate and liqueur notes. Thought this would be good to layer with Burberry her, so to test I did one wrist with both and one wrist only Burberry. The wrist with kyse’s perfume actually has a vanilla dry down and I’m loving it! Still not full bottle worthy though as it takes hours for it to be a scent I actually enjoy...

Very fun scent - strawberry note projected a bit loud and synthetic on me and I wish the other notes were stronger for more of a strawberry cake smell. I think this smells more like the shiny syrupy strawberries that bakeries use to top cakes with