Party Love Eau de Parfum

Cherry and cupcake, and that is the honest sum of Escada Party Love Eau de Parfum, a fragrance that knows exactly what it is and makes no attempt to be anything more. Cherry opens it, and it is the glacé, liqueur soaked kind rather than fresh fruit from a bowl: dark, sweet, faintly almond edged and quite sticky. Nothing cuts across it, because there is nothing else in the top of the composition to do so. Underneath, cupcake and vanilla carry the rest. Cupcake is doing the work you would expect, sponge and icing and a buttery warmth, with vanilla smoothing it into something rounder and less specific. Together they turn the cherry into a slice of cake rather than a piece of fruit, which is plainly the intention.

Nathalie Lorson is the perfumer, and the year was 2023. There is no development worth describing: three materials do not evolve, they simply settle, and what you smell in the first minute is what you have for the next several hours. There is more oil behind it than the style suggests, so it lasts well, five or six hours, and it is noticeable at close range in the first of those. Two sprays is ample. Cold weather and evenings suit it, and it is aimed at a young audience that wants a fragrance to be fun rather than tasteful. On those terms it succeeds, and anyone who dislikes sweet fragrance should stay well away from it.

Escada is a Munich based womenswear house, started in 1978 by Margaretha and Wolfgang Ley and known for loud colour and print. The fashion company declared bankruptcy in 2009 and passed to the Mittal family trusts. Its scents are made under licence, and the line has traded for three decades on sweet, fruity limited editions, a habit that began with Chiffon Sorbet in 1993.