Rude Cherry Fragrance Du Bois 2025

Objectively, Rude Cherry is not a top flight scent. Don’t take that to mean it’s mid or anything, it’s good! But for anyone else I don’t think it’s 9.5/10 good.

But let me explain to you why it’s 9.5 for me.

I love cherry accords, but that just means I judge them more harshly than other notes. I generally don’t like saccharine cherries, those plasticy red 40 glacé cherries, cherries without body & a bit of tartness. A cherry should be bloody red flesh, natural sweetness, & a tartness that balances it out.

Here the cherry note is balanced by a unique combination of chilli & a synthetic aquatic note, which is quite fascinating to me. It’s herbal, fruity, & fresh.

& Samra’s managed to make the fruitiness of the cherry linger into the heart & base. Buoyed by the tonka coumarin & a subtle jammy rose, it survives even the woody smokiness of the cypriol-saffron-vetiver complex.

Finally the fruitiness meets Samra’s typical westernised, subtle oud, & there with the slight amber colouring of the vanilla & ambergris it brings me back to my wrist to sniff throughout the day.

It simply hits all my buttons, fruit without sweetness, well blended but with character, complexity without screechiness. Ahh, it’s gorgeous.

& it’s the perfect canvas to layer with too, you can use an attar like Dehnal Oudh Amiri to punch up the oud base, or something like Chipotle Pepper Cologne to brighten up the opening. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m sure layering a cherry forward scent like Cherry Punk Eau de Parfum or Cherry Smoke would have great effect too.

The only real downfall of the scent is having to give Harrod’s of London, a much diminished institution, a lot of your money to enjoy it.

& whilst the presentation is sumptuous, I would prefer to pay less & not have a velvet presentation box tbh.

Objectively it’s a good fragrance. Subjectively it’s my signature right now.

Since Sirene is one of my favorite fragrances, I wanted to see what the supposedly naughty brother can do.

Rude Cherry starts unexpectedly with a slap of leather to the face. No leather listed? How can that be? Probably the saffron has made its mark and created a leathery first impression. This is the only part that I found to be somewhat "rude."
However, this doesn't last very long. Very quickly, a juicy cherry with a distinct almond note comes to the forefront. Only minimally spicy, chili supports the top note, while I perceive the aquatic notes as barely noticeable, giving me a slightly fresh impression.
In the heart, we have fine woody cypriol with a very nice tonka bean.
Soon, amber and oud join in, while the vanilla is not too prominent, which is why the fragrance never becomes too sweet and is actually easier to wear for both genders than, for example, Sirene. I think there is probably less oud used, but it is very nice.

Conclusion: Rude Cherry is unisex for me and a slightly different take on cherry. Very pleasing and yet rather tame :)

For those who like to work with comparisons, which I personally enjoy, I would say that Rude Cherry has a very unique start, but then becomes somewhat more familiar.
It doesn't smell the same, but if I had to categorize it, the drydown would be somewhere in the middle of Perpetual and Delphinus without dustiness, less sweet with a bit of oud supporting it.
(At least on my skin, as I tested both side by side)