Like Tom Ford Cherry Smoke? What to Sample Next

Tom Ford Cherry Smoke’s pull comes from a specific combination, not “cherry” in general: sour cherry and saffron up top, leather with Chinese osmanthus, olive, and apricot in the heart, and a cypriol-oil smoke base underneath, per Fragrantica’s note breakdown. That is a dry, resinous, leather-forward build, not the sweet almond-cherry-liqueur profile most people associate with a Tom Ford cherry release. The next bottles worth sampling keep that same structure rather than chasing more cherry: By Kilian’s Dark Lord “Ex Tenebris Lux” pushes further into leather and smoke, Kayali’s Lovefest Burning Cherry 48 keeps a genuine smoky-cherry accord at a far more accessible retail tier, and — despite sharing a name and a perfumer — Tom Ford’s own Lost Cherry is not one of them.

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What Cherry Smoke actually does with cherry, leather, and smoke

Cherry Smoke launched in 2022 as part of Tom Ford’s Private Blend line, composed by Louise Turner of Givaudan. Fragrantica classifies it as an oriental spicy fragrance, not a gourmand, and its own accord descriptions explain why the “spicy cherry leather” read is accurate rather than a stretch: the smoke accord is built from cherry tobacco, hookah smoke, and burning wood; the leather sits underneath, described as “soft, well-made,” with osmanthus contributing apricot, olive, and leathery facets of its own; and cypriol oil (also called nagarmotha) drives the smoky woody base. Saffron in the top notes is what gives it the spicy edge. Nothing in that pyramid is almond, tonka, or vanilla — the ingredients that make most designer cherry fragrances read as dessert.

That matters for what to sample next, because the two things people usually reach for first — more Tom Ford cherries, or anything else with “cherry” in the name — mostly move away from this structure rather than toward it.

Why Lost Cherry is the wrong next bottle

Lost Cherry is the obvious next reach: same brand, same perfumer, same word in the name. Its Fragrantica note pyramid is bitter almond, black cherry, and cherry liqueur up top; sour cherry, plum, Turkish rose, and jasmine sambac in the heart; vanilla, tonka bean, cinnamon, sandalwood, and benzoin in the base. There is no leather note and no smoke accord anywhere in it — it is an oriental floral built around almond-cherry sweetness, and Fragrantica’s own comparison coverage of the three Tom Ford cherries describes Cherry Smoke as darker and more masculine than the other two specifically because it drops that gourmand sweetness for smoke and leather. Sampling Lost Cherry after liking Cherry Smoke tests the opposite thing: how much you like syrupy almond-cherry, not how much more leather and smoke you can take.

Tom Ford’s third cherry release, Electric Cherry, moves even further in the same wrong direction — it reads as a lighter, more floral, more citrus-tinted version of Lost Cherry rather than a smokier one, so it does not answer this request either. If the goal is staying close to what Cherry Smoke actually does, none of Tom Ford’s other cherry-named releases are the next stop.

More leather, more smoke, no cherry: Dark Lord “Ex Tenebris Lux”

By Kilian’s Dark Lord “Ex Tenebris Lux,” composed by Alberto Morillas and classified by Fragrantica in its “Smokes” olfactive family, shares an ingredient with Cherry Smoke that few other fragrances do: cypriol oil, the same nagarmotha-derived note driving Cherry Smoke’s smoky base. Around it, Dark Lord builds leather, vetiver, oakmoss, patchouli, and amber, with rum, pepper, and jasmine on top instead of fruit. There is no cherry note in it at all — the trade is explicit. Sample this one for readers who found the leather-and-smoke side of Cherry Smoke more interesting than the cherry, and who are willing to lose the fruit entirely to get more of the rest.

A cheaper way to keep the smoky-cherry idea: Kayali’s Lovefest Burning Cherry 48

Kayali’s Lovefest Burning Cherry 48 keeps the cherry, keeps a real smoke accord, and is available through mainstream beauty retailers rather than only Tom Ford’s Private Blend counters and boutiques. Its notes run black cherry and raspberry up top, praline, heliotrope, and Damask rose in the heart, and palo santo, guaiac wood, Peru balsam, and patchouli in the base. Fragrantica classifies it as floral fruity gourmand — the praline and raspberry keep it sweeter and less dry than Cherry Smoke, and it has no true leather note — but the palo santo and guaiac wood base is a genuine smoky-woody accord sitting under a cherry note, which is closer to Cherry Smoke’s actual idea than Lost Cherry’s almond-liqueur build is. This is the one to sample if what appealed about Cherry Smoke was “smoky cherry” rather than “leather” specifically, and if easier availability matters more than staying inside one perfume house.

Comparing the four

Sampling before committing to a full bottle

Leather and smoke bases built on cypriol oil, oakmoss, and patchouli wear differently across skin chemistry than fruity-floral top notes do — a pattern fragrance forums return to constantly when people compare notes on how the same leather composition reads on different wearers. That is the practical reason to test a decant of Dark Lord or a small size of Lovefest Burning Cherry 48 before committing to either as a full bottle, the same way most people test Cherry Smoke itself before buying it: the note pyramid tells you what is in the bottle, not how the drydown will actually sit on a given wearer eight hours in. Between the two, the split is straightforward to test for — sample Dark Lord to find out how much leather and smoke is tolerable without any fruit at all, and sample Lovefest Burning Cherry 48 to find out whether the cherry needs to stay sweet or needs to stay dry.