Cherry Temptation

What a wonderful budget cherry scent! It opens with a wonderful juicy, bright, and fresh cherry note that made my fiancé and I sniff my skin twice. The jasmine in this fragrance is blended well, and provides a soft floral touch to the fragrance. There’s some vanilla and amber in here as well, even if it’s not listed. I layered this fragrance with Sensual Vanilla and it was an intense love, I was in berry vanilla heaven. I can definitely see myself layering this with other cherry scents I own. However, this fragrance lasted all day on my skin and forever on my clothes. I love this scent and it’s a shame it’s being discontinued. Hopefully I can grab another one before it’s gone forever.

Bought this yesterday on my lunch break and all of my colleagues were stunned by how good this smells. One sprayed it on herself and said straight away she'll get it as well. It's a beautiful cherry, that's not too sweet. Opens super fruity but on my skin dries down to be nearly woody and a very warm scent. The dry down reminds me of Black Tulip from Shay & Blue - which I LOVE. So this is a big win for me, especially on the price. I could see this great for layering with different scents, like something woody or vanilla. A more mature cherry than Cherry Smoothie, and I think this might be my autumn scent for this year.

I do really quite like this. It has character, and it’s not forgettable, and I’m not usually a fan of cherry scents, with the exception being Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire Black Perfecto. These two fragrances are nothing alike whatsoever, the Guerlain is much darker, smokier, more leathery, herbal and smoky with a dark blood red rose as the floral that anchors it. Much more suitable for winter than this one, and the Guerlain longevity and projection is incomparable to this one. It’s a beast, while this Zara fragrance is a whisper. So yes, This Zara fragrance is the complete opposite, it is much more easy going and cheerful, not nearly as complex as the Guerlain, but still a pleasant cherry that I’ve been loving to wear nonetheless. I think what I perceive as a vile cherry scent is whenever the cherry is mixed with almond, amaretto or other boozy or overly sweet notes. Enter Lost Cherry and pretty much everything like it lol. Neither this Zara fragrance or the Guerlain have any of those attributes, so thats why I quite like them. I have smelled 2 of Tom Ford’s Cherry fragrances, and didn’t like either of them. This Zara Cherry Tempation is one that I really appreciate for its more playful, uplifting, lighthearted demeanor, without going into kiddy cherry koolaid, cherry candy syrup or cherry hookah territory. While being uplifting and energizing, this perfume manages to still come across as moderately refined and elegant, due to the jasmine and touch of saffron and amber anchoring it to being more mature, not a sugary fragrance by any means, but it is a tad syrupy. It’s overall very balanced while bringing out a version of that fresh cherry fruit that I love, without going into gourmand territory. It’s tough to balance a cherry fragrance, but I think Zara was successful in that endeavor when they created this one! Apart from the Guerlain LPRN, This is the only other cherry that I’m willing to rock, and I see this as more of a fall transitional or daytime fall fragrance. I find it to be too sweet and heavy for the summertime, but will be wearing it plenty in the fall. It’s perfect for days that aren’t any hotter than 75 degrees F. Any warmer than that and it’s too much. The cherry is bright and juicy, not at all medicinal, and the Red Temptation/Baccarat DNA is very present in the background and is very smooth and tempered, not at all sharp, and both that dna as well as the cherry note, both persist throughout the duration of wear. Longevity is about 5 hours, which is impressive for a Zara fragrance. It still smells moderately refined and not at all like cheap body spray. This very much pleasantly surprised me. Projection is moderate leaning intimate for the first hour or two (depending on how much you spray, but I’m a very light sprayer) then lilts to a more intimate projection for the remaining hours. Not nearly as long lasting or strong projecting as Rose Gourmand, but that one gives me a headache anyway, so those aren’t necessarily positives about Rose Gourmand in my book. With all that said, I give Cherry Temptation a solid rating of 4/5! UPDATE 10/1- I have decided to declutter this, as I am curating my fragrance wardrobe. This almost made the cut, but not quite. Smells beautiful though, it’s of outstanding quality and smells so much more expensive than it is, and wears beautifully. I stand by everything I previously said in my review. The thing is, Fruity fragrances tend to be the first to go when I declutter, so that’s no fault of this fragrance; it’s just based on my personal taste.

The tester of this perfume smelt divine, the testing strip smelt divine and when I brought it home it also smelt divine. The opening notes are a dark juicy cherry with a woody, smokey, incensy background to stabilize it. It just smelt so "dark and gothic" for lack of better words. It reminds me of an Addam's family play I saw where they used woody scents. I bought it as soon as I smelt the testing strip without spraying it on me first so I am very sad to say that the dry-down is a high pitched note of salt. I don't know if everybody can smell salt but it is very sharp and screechy. So needless to say this sharp and high pitched note doesn't go well with the heavy thick and mellow cherry notes. It feels like an intruder. I have never tried a luxury brand cherry perfume, but I own 3 "mid" cherry perfumes - two of them have a salty note and one of them smells like cough drops. Maybe it's just my nose, because I am extremely sensitive to smells. My partner however, said he thinks it smells really nice in the dry down. Luckily the perfume doesn't last that long on my skin so the salt notes disappear quite soon. However, if sprayed on clothes it lasts for 10+ hours - 1 hour of a woody, smokey cherry and 9 hours of salt.

This on air and on someone else smells nice. But on me and on whoever it is, if you smell it closely (if you have it on yourself), you can detect a medicine metallic vibe in the fragrance. But that metallic synthetic cherry luckily doesn't projecf too much. There is no juiciness to the perfume. Just don't buy it. It is not a hate hate but there are other cherry perfumes better than this. Longevity is about 5 hours on skin; around 8 hours on clothes. Colder weather appropriate

It is an absolutely amazing perfume! It reminds me of Baccarat without the pharmacy like sense, vanilla cherry, something seductive fruity and delicious!!! Very well done, probably my favourite of the collection!