Raw Cherry
Aaron Terence Hughes (2022)

I surprised myself with how much I love this stuff. It’s POWERFUL. Oudy, a Thai Oud, slightly raunchy, thrusty, woody. The Cherry is the LOUD post-agricultural variety one that has bounced back out of the isles of consumer products like sweets and lip-balm, one that is more at home in a night-club or in a city park-lavatory. The cherry lingers with those woodsy notes all the way through. You can apply this conservatively in the evening before you hit the pub, fresh slightly citrusy… And at 5am when you stagger out of the clubs, this will still be there at your side to carry you, warm, comforting, rich, maybe a bit of rose, vanilla, nutmeg and cocktail-boozy. Alternatively, if you live in the country, you will catch whiffs of this around you for ages, and in your clothes for a few days. This was not how I expected it. For me, it was like finding a real fun and personable playmate from well outside of my ‘normal’ social group. I’m sooo glad I got this! Aaron Terence Hughes is a fantastic perfumer, hedonistic, extroverted and contemporary, one to take with you into the madness that we live in.

Dry and dusty, this cherry is not candy sweet or juvenile. It's more like a chocolate-vanilla-oud scent with cherry liquor as a featured, secondary note. Maybe even something like a cherry cordial, minus the sweetness.

Projection is solid without being extreme and longevity is very good.

This is definitely not a cherry pie fragrance, or another Lost Cherry clone. Raw Cherry is a fresh, dark cherry scent. It opens with a slightly harsh note which might be the combination of lemon and tart cherry together, but I don't really get any notes of cherry liqueur nor mandarin. The morello cherry stays fairly constant for several hours, and has pretty good sillage. As Raw Cherry dries down, the morello cherry stays prominent, and up close you get the tonka and some woody notes. In the background as the scent dries further down I notice rose and just the tiniest touch of oud - not barnyard oud, but a smokey oud. Today is my first wearing of Raw Cherry, so I can only vouch for the performance being 6+ hours, but I expect it might be 8+ or more as it is currently holding out pretty strong, with the cherry staying very notable at an arm's length or more of distance. I think that as a solo scent this may be somewhat too linear with mostly "cherry on top" but I am already thinking up layering combinations that I want to try adding the smokey cherry to.