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

I've been on a strawberry perfume mission the entire summer. I've bought dozens, some really wonderful, some not so wonderful. On the initial spray of Kyse's Serenade Aux Fraises, I thought I had found my winner. It was a beautifully sweet and bright macerated strawberry with a sugary freshness that made my little heart happy.... and then it dried. Ooof. I don't know what happened, but the dreamy strawberry scent went sideways fast, like cough syrup and chemicals. I'm so sad. I bought 6 Kyse fragrance samples and unfortunately, they all suffered in the dry down.

At first, sweet, sugary, syrupy strawberries! It is incredibly realistic on the top note, but the plum drags it down in a way that almost reminds me of coughs syrup. I adore the strawberry note, as it’s the one of the most realistic ones I’ve ever smelled, but the rest of the perfume is a no from me. Maybe it’s the oud? Idk. It kind of reminds me of my roommates vape juice on the dry down.

This scent was very disappointing to me. I agree with the review that it smells like a strawberry scented hookah or a tobacco wrap. I get some kind of smoky note. Omg, I hated it!

this is a no for me. Very mild strawberry scent; mainly whipped cream and biscuit then it fades into a crayola crayon smell. was hoping for stronger vanilla.

Sharp synthetic strawberry with Damask rose and passionfruit. I do not sense baked goods or whipped cream.

awful. not even "cherry medicine", I'm one of those rare people that likes cherry medicine but I think this is what people mean when they say cherry medicine as a bad thing. It's very thick and syrupy and really does smell medicinal. I don't get cake or strawberry, I think what I'm smelling is the plum, vanilla, and oud. It doesn't smell sweet or dessert-like at all to me, just something artificial trying to emulate something sweet and but just ends up being bitter.

I am flooded with intensely unpleasant childhood memories of feeling very unwell and being fed the most foul cough syrup. It's so bad. Synthetic, bitter, medicinal, nauseating. Excuse me while I go wash this off!

Kyse Perfumes - Sérénade aux Fraises (Strawberry Serenade, a fragrance collaboration by Terri Bozzo and Joseph W. Sagona, 2020) Fragrance notes: Strawberry, passion fruit, plum, Moroccan rose, cream, Tahitian vanilla, organic sandalwood, violet leaf, musk and black agar. Sérénade aux Fraise is a gourmand lovers treat! They’re few fragrances available in the market today that center around the strawberry. One can find a few in the niche market that are strawberry dominant but most fail and fall into the artificial smelling strawberry realm that is reminiscent of General Mills Frankenberry cereal of my youth. I loved it as a child but I don’t want to smell of a kiddie box of flavored fruity cereal! Kyse Perfumes Sérénade aux Fraise is such a realistic dominant strawberry scent that you’ll be wanting whipped cream to go with it. No worries! There’s a dollop of sweet cream in there as well. Strawberries have many positive and humble traits associated with them. ‘Medieval masons and builders often marked stones and columns with strawberry designs to symbolize perfection and righteousness. Somewhere along the line, the luscious fruit became a symbol for Venus, the Goddess of Love, due to its faint heart-shape and red color.’ Romantics believe that if a double strawberry is shared between lovers their hearts become bound, and they’re destined to be together for all eternity. Strawberries are the fruit of love; pure and joyful. Strawberries are indeed cheerful. They pleasure our tastebuds with their sweet flavor. In fact the Ancient Romans believed eating strawberries wore off melancholy. I agree! The taste, sight and smell of strawberry lifts my spirit. The smell alone is clinically proven to elevate mood and alter ones perception of depression temporarily. Strawberry is a common incense scent for meditation and is frequently utilized in odor eliminating agents in public restrooms and public transportation services. Why? Because it’s the scent of strawberry calms, promotes a good mood and makes people happy. Sérénade aux Fraise starts off with a big blast of glorious bright red sweet realistic strawberry. The violet leaf adds an underlying green freshness. Deep in the background, I smell a whiff of musty tartness which I suspect is the passionfruit. It balances the sweet strawberry; to prevent it from becoming cloyingly sweet. Even though passionfruit and plum are listed in the notes, it neither smells of passionfruit nor plum. The additional two fruits just offer some of their characteristics; specifically a sweet tart freshness of passionfruit and the jaminess of the (red) plum. Moroccan rose is present in the fragrance, but again no rose scent is detected right away. Perhaps because rose and strawberry stem from the same family, they naturally play well together. Maybe this particular rose had a berry scent which subtly gives both notes simultaneously. Whatever Ms. Bozzo’s trade secrets are, make no mistake, Sérénade aux Fraises is all strawberry. In the hands of its creator is where the magic happens! Fresh cream slowly rises to the surface of Sérénade aux Fraises. It sublimely floats in, light and airy. The cream blends with the sweet floral notes of Tahitian vanilla. The pure cream, Tahitian vanilla floral undertones and intermittent little wafts of Moroccan rose all blend masterfully with the strawberry and other fruits to give the fragrance a certain maturation. As it all lays softly on a sheer musk, sandalwood and black agar (oud) base. The dry down on my skin was more sandalwood and soft musk than oud; but the oud created a rich finish to contrast the juicy sweet strawberry. The fragrance stayed with me 12 hours plus as a lovely realistic strawberry fragrance with rich velvet notes of Moroccan rose. The rose grows stronger the longer it sits on the skin. In fact, even in the shower I could still enjoy the strawberry melange as the steam heated my skin and lifted the fragrance of rosy red strawberry magnificence into the ethereal realm. Sérénade aux Fraises is indeed a more sophisticated interpretation of a grown up strawberry fragrance, ie., not for the kids. Granted they can wear it if they desire (how wonderful would that be!) Sérénade aux Fraises would smell amazing on a 12 year old, radiant on a 30 year old career girl or beautiful on a 56 year old woman or a man who wants to smell gloriously delicious anytime of year! A word to the fragrantly wise... If you have not procured a sample or bottle of Sérénade aux Fraises, I suggest you do before the summer heat hits! Sérénade aux Fraises worn during the summery berry days would be magnificently chic! Bring on the strawberry festivals, jams and summer puddings! Serenade aux Fraises is the best representation of real strawberry in fragrance I’ve ever smelled. 🍓🎶🍓🎶🍓🎶🍓🎶🍓 Today, January 20, 2020, is the official launch of Kyse Perfumes Serenade aux Fraises!! Use code JOSEPH20 to get 20% off your entire Kyse order!!

One of the latest from Kyse Perfumes is Serenade aux Fraises, a scent centered on strawberries, quite fresh and sharp with violet leaf, with some vanilla and woods that become more a part of the mix in the dry down. It’s a nice take on strawberries without being too daring or bold for most people, I’d say, and it becomes fairly easy to wear in its dry down, especially. SAF evolves quite a bit from a loud, sharp opening, with plenty of violet, to a much more subtle dry down. It’s a bit screechy for my liking at its onset but gradually becomes more balanced over time, drying down to pleasant fruity musky scent, sweet but not overly sweet along the lines of some of the other entries in this house of many gourmands. Performance-wise, it’s dense and loud at the start but then calms down to a medium-density scent for the hours that follow. Overall, quite good performance. And, as always with Kyse, the pricing for Serenade aux Fraises is very reasonable, at $82/55/35/24 for 100/60/30/15ml. 6 out of 10

Think of the strawberries and cream swirl flavored Creme Savers candies if you've ever had them, and that is exactly what this fragrance smells like. The opening hits you with the most delicious, sweet, juicy strawberry note with lots of decadent whipped cream on top. When I sampled it, I was hesitant about the staying power of the strawberry note, but I found that it lasted all day on my skin so I went ahead and ordered a bottle the same day my sample got in. I didn't have any fragrances like this that focused on the strawberry before, but I'm so glad I came across this house and now have this in my collection because it's absolutely delicious. Terri managed to perfectly capture the magic of sweet strawberries and fluffy cream which is pretty difficult because strawberry oil doesn't exist and will always be synthetic. But this scent is a beauty and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys strawberry in their fragrance!

Pulled this one out after 2 years of exile in the dark perfume cabinet and its really developed! At purchase i wasn't too impressed and much preferred Soliani's Fraagola Saalataa or Jousset AALV Creme de la berry over this. But now, the passionfruit has come out to dance and that plum and violet have deepened into almost an iris-y lipstick scent (very syrupy tho as the review below stated, it would be much lighter without the plum) and very on par with Glossier You Reve with a wild strawberry top. Unfortunately about 30 minutes later it veers into strawberry plum candle territory. Around hour 3-4 it does get a bit lighter and turn into a really pretty strawberry skin scent, the syrupy plum burns off and its reminiscent of Fraagola Saalataa at this stage (which again, i prefer over this because you don't get that strawberry candle stage with FS)

I'm not sure if it's the alcohol or what, but I have to hold my breath for about 5 seconds after I spray this perfume, or I'll sneeze my brains out. "Strawberries and cream" is the best way to describe this fragrance. This scent reminds me of those fancy strawberry cakes and parfaits you would eat at fancy parties. I was specifically looking for a scent that would make me feel like a princess having tea, so I'm very pleased. This is def the fragrance I'll be wearing this spring, even if I can't go out during self-isolation. Depending on who you ask, the strawberry note can come across as artificial. To me, though, it's not a cheap artificial smell. Obviously, strawberry essential oil does not exist, so it will smell artificial no matter what.

This little gem is better than Burberry Her Elixir, Strawberry & Cream, and Strawberry Kiss! All of those are weirdly powdery and mature with an aggressively synthetic strawberry note. But this? This strawberry is the most realistic I’ve sniffed yet. It isn’t like a fresh strawberry, it’s like a strawberry compote or dessert sauce. To me it reminds me of a mixed berry compote folded into whipped cream and layered over some sort of vanilla cake or angel food. At times I almost get a very faint chocolate note. I revived a small sample of this along with a strawberry bundle a fragrance friend sent me, and accidentally spilled some of it somehow, so I barely have any left but I’m going to RUN to buy a bottle!

Front and forward is a jammy glazed strawberry. Im getting serious strawberry shortcake vibes. I voted whipped cream the next highest because I do get a bit of sweet creaminess, but not full on vanilla. As it settles there is a darker edge musk? Sandalwood? Agarwood? Its subtle and underneath the strawberry to hard to say! What I can say is it gives an impression of bread and helps build my shortcake narrative in an interesting way. So a fairly healthy oat cake with glazed strawberries and a modest topping of whipped cream -- sounds gourmet and smells delicious!

I like it! It reminds me Mukhallat only in that perspective that the strawberry at the opening is not a real one, but I don't mind it here. In a 5-10 minutes the fragrance is settling on a skin and the strawberry is not as bright as in the opening, It's more perfumy, it's creamy, slightly green from the violet leaf (and you can tell there's a green note to it), vanilla and plum is pretty prominent along with the woody notes. I like it, but not sure I need to add it to my collection.

What a nice surprise that Terri included a sample spray of this in my most recent order! Serenade aux Fraises had come out just after I placed my order, and I was wishing I had ordered it, too. That initial blast of fresh strawberry in the top just made me smile. The strawberry may not be as apparent in the drydown; however, the drydown is very beautiful in itself. It has the Terri Bozzo Kyse DNA, and the whole thing is lovely.

I agree with ChrysTrails below who said that this smells like strawberry scented hookah — it has the same fruity syrupy-ness that hookah has. At first sniff, it reminded me of Montale Mukhallat but more sweet and strawberry-like, and slightly toned down on the middle eastern vibe that Mukhallat has. This is totally different from the type of strawberry perfumes that I’m used to, and I definitely dig it! A love for me 🥰!

This smells exactly like the Bonne Bell "Whirly Shimmer Gloss" in the scent "Strawberry Vanilla Stars". It's a strawberry vanilla with a bit of a bite - kind of like the Strawberry Creme Savers candy, but a little waxier and more synthetic. Truly smells like a 90's throwback lip product. It feels nostalgic and whimsical so in that way it's fun, but to me it is not one I'd buy a full bottle of.

Truly and honestly this is such a gorgeous strawberry dessert gourmand scent! It falls directly in between “fun” and “wearable”. The strawberry is creamy and jammy, candied and bright! Someone below said creme savers candies and that’s EXACTLY IT. While I can’t name many places I’d wear this perfume comfortably, I did order the body butter - can’t say no to Terri & her work!!

Strawberry for grown ups is correct! A very heavy and syrupy strawberry with a sturdy wood backbone and musky drydown. Reminds me of strawberry syrup for pancakes and waffles. The plastic dispensers that are left on the diner tables and rarely cleaned, just continually topped off. Synthetic, jammy and powdery. This is a 'sex positive' strawberry LOL.

This smells jammy to me but not necessarily like strawberry— just more of a non-specific fruit sweetness. The whipped cream and the sandalwood to me stand out far above anything berry-like. This is pretty, but if you sprayed this and the B&BW version on opposite wrists, I couldn’t tell them apart.

This is a beautiful fun scent. The notes blend well together. Serenade aux Fraises, to me, is an interesting composition.Definitely Full Bottle worthy. Love the strawberry shortcake and confectionary aspects of the fragrance.Thank you, Terri Bozzo and Kyse Perfumes. Well Done.

If you are looking for a strawberry/plum scent, you should give this a try. I've tried several Kyse fragrances and this has a similar chocolate note like Gateau de Carnavale. Not a huge fan of this one but it's not off putting.

I’ve worn my sample of this 3 or 4 times, hoping to get strawberry shortcake, and all I get is cherry cough syrup. I thought I was crazy, but I see other reviews that also say cough syrup. Kind of disappointing!

This is a nice strawberries and cream fragrance. It's a tad synthetic but a nice scent, although not one I feel the need to add to my collection after sampling as it's not a "love" for me.

This is just yummy. I smell like strawberry shortcake. The strong strawberry I get at first, melts down to this creamy, vanilla-ee, fruity deliciousness. A must have for me.

this one is fun and un-serious and tart. i never knew what people meant when they said a fragrance reminded them of plastic doll heads. thanks to this, now i do! 😂

I received this as a sample, and it’s really not for me. The scent reminds me of strawberry scented hookah or swisher sweets from the corner store.

Just got mine in the mail. Wonderful! Exactly like I expected. Strawberries and cream 🥰 thanks Terri!

Didn't smell any strawberry in this. Mostly rose and musk with a bit of whipped cream.