Tom Ford’s $255 perfume vs. balm: ‘Sinister’

You will die from the smell of this perfume.

Tom Ford’s sweet-smelling fragrance Lost Cherry has become a fan favorite, being described by some beauty lovers as a fragrance that makes them “happy”.

But little do they know – it is similar to the smell of corpses.

Anna Van Burnen, a content creator and senior at Stanford University, revealed online that she had saved up to buy the $225 fragrance during a trip to Hong Kong — only to later learn via her TikTok feed that she “ it smelled exactly like embalming fluid.”

“Still heartbroken”, she wrote in the caption of her video. “And smells like embalming fluid.”

Some people supported the disturbing claims about Lost Cherry – which contains notes of black cherry, tonka bean and almond – while others wrote it off.

“When I was working with corpses, I always said, ‘Who’s wearing the missing cherry here?’ and then this happened,” one viewer wrote.

“To me it smells like those cherry lip balms from the early 2000s that smelled like cherry, but like… in a bad way… a waxy and overly artificial way,” wrote someone else.

“Lost cherry was my wedding perfume and it’s the scent I get the most compliments on,” one person commented. “So I guess a lot of us like the smell of embalming fluid.”

A former morgue student, however, argued that it “really doesn’t” smell like a corpse and pleaded with people to “carry on”.

“I mean, if you like it, only a mortician would know,” reasoned another user.

Despite online debate over whether the perfume – referred to as the “sweet corpse” scent by some TikTokkers – exactly matches the scent of the embalming fluid, experts reveal that the scent can, in fact, mimic the smell of corpses due to the ingredient benzaldehyde, which which is used in foods or flavors to create an almond or cherry flavor or smell.

It is also the same chemical used during the embalming process.

“I’ve smelled this at wakes before for people who chose to be embalmed,” death doula and author Tree Carr said of Dazed of the Lost Cherry perfume.

“I think it actually smells like marzipan, with a slightly spicy undertone. Funeral homes go to great lengths to ensure that any embalming chemical odors are minimized through the use of benzaldehyde.