Fashion fans compare ‘sinister’ smell of Tom Ford’s $255 perfume to embalming fluid

Tom Ford is famous for pricey fragrances beloved by celebrities like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and Drake. 

The American fashion designer’s namesake brand famously makes strong scents that can be controversial – and this one is, but for a surprising reason. 

Lost Cherry started going viral on TikTok after people said it smelled like a specific embalming fluid – just as cherries were declared winter’s hottest scent. 

Stanford senior Anna Ryb, 21, made a video where she explained, ‘Once I tried this Tom Ford perfume and fell in love with it,’ but ‘even a travel size was over $100, and they were sold out.’

Anna ended up saving up and buying the pricey perfume in Hong Kong – but a week later, a mortician on her ‘For You Page’ on TikTok ‘said it smelled exactly like EMBALMING FLUID.’ 

Tom Ford is famous for pricey fragrances beloved by celebrities like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and Drake

Lost Cherry started going viral on TikTok after people said it smelled like a specific embalming fluid – just as cherries were declared winter’s hottest scent

Embalming fluid is made up of chemicals that preserve and delay decomposition, including formaldehyde and methanol, as seen above at a funeral home 

Anna captioned the video, which received 985,000 views, ‘still heart broken and smelling like embalming fluid.’

Some people said the allegations weren’t true, while others swore they were and that they had proof. 

‘Tbf when working with cadavers I was always like, “Who here is wearing Lost Cherry?” and then this happened,’ one commenter claimed.

‘It’s that death smell like one of the compounds in the perfume, not embalming fluid itself,’ another commenter argued.

‘Everyone asks why I won’t wear cherry- you won’t catch me until I’m dead smelling like cherries,’ one popular comment read. 

‘It smells faintly of it yes, but the perfume has more of a rich scent to it than embalming fluid,’ a commenter clarified. 

Embalming fluid is made up of chemicals that preserve and delay decomposition, including formaldehyde and methanol. 

‘To me it smells like those early 2000s cherry lip balms that smelled like cherry but like… in a sinister way… a waxy and incredibly artificial way… and I love it for that but I don’t have $395,’ another TikTok user said. 

‘Lost Cherry was my wedding perfume and it’s the scent I get the most compliments on lol. So I guess a lot of us like the smell of embalming fluid,’ one commenter quickly responded.

Portia Freeman attended the launch of Tom Ford Lost Cherry and the store’s first anniversary in London in 2018, as seen above

Some people said the allegations weren’t true, while others swore they were and that they had proof, while other commenters gave tips on similar fragrances to buy for less money 

Some women gave tips to make it smell different like pairing it with a cherry scented lotion or trying one of the many dupes, like Dossier’s Amber Cherry for $49, or Kayli Lovest, which is $100 and Cherry Punk by Room 1015 for $31. 

According to the fragrance description, the warm and spicy full-bodied perfume, which ranges from $255 to $400, combines bitter almond, Turkish rose, jasmine, and cherry liqueur. 

A New York-based makeup artist with the username Ohuprettythings, who has done makeup on a cadaver previously, took to Instagram to clear the rumors up.

She wrote, ‘Dead bodies (that are embalmed) have a sickly sweet smell to them… If you smell the synthetic notes of Lost Cherry, it can be quite sickly sweet if you’re ignoring all the other layers.

‘Now do I think Lost Cherry truly smells like a dead body? No, but like I said… I see how she drew the parallels.’

On Reddit, some users cleared up beauty lover’s confusion, with one writing, ‘Nobody except for people who use that specific embalming fluid would know what it smelled like anyways.’