Every now and again, you stumble across a fragrance that you just know that you are going to remain faithful to for many years to come. For a long time, that fragrance for me was Black XS by Paco Rabanne. Although I still love this fragrance, I have recently been seduced entirely by the delicious charm of Miss Dior, Cherie.

Background
The fragrance has been created to honour what would have been Christian Dior's hundredth birthday and I think he would have been more than happy with this present. The inspiration for the perfume is said to have come from the 'My Cherie Amour' song by Stevie Wonder and from an actual Dior dress named Cherie that dates back to the 1940s.

Advertisement
The adverts are based on a fantasy world that almost takes on an Alice in Wonderland theme. It features colourful balloons, lots of ribbons and big hats and dresses. The adverts are based on the fact that the fragrance is supposed to represent a walk through a spring garden and incorporates all of the liveliness and colours that you would encounter on your way.

The fragrance
The perfume is fun, flirty and whimsical. It has been designed for the elegant lady who is confident, special and decisive. It attempts to capture the feeling of love, warmth and romance with a sparkling charm. The sugary sweetness makes this perfect for women of all ages, who like to seek out the fun in life and who seize each moment in life. The aroma is modern and eternally youthful and fun. It completely encapsulates the expression 'Joie de Vivre'.

Top Notes
The top layer of the fragrance has been created using fruity tangerines and sweet juicy strawberries.

Middle Notes
At the heart of the fragrance is a real mixture of sweetness. Violette, Pink Jasmine, Caramalised Popcorn, Vanilla and Strawberry Sorbet combine to make an aroma that smells good enough to eat.

Base Notes
An earthy depth is created using Patchouli while Crystalline Musk brings a delicious warmth.

Packaging and Price
The bottle is classy and beautiful and is perfect in order to represent the fragrance as it is cute and fun yet sophisticated too. The bottle is a heavy glass cube through which you can see the pink coloured liquid inside. Around the neck of the bottle there is a metallic silver bow and when you remove the clear lid, you push down on the silver dispenser to release the fragrance.

This fragrance is one of the more pricey ones on the market and mine cost me £50 for 50ml of the delicious scent. You can also buy the fragrance in the 100ml bottle size although this obviously costs more. You can buy the fragrance from large department stores, perfume shops and also from many online websites and if you shop around you may find it for cheaper.

Extra Thoughts
The initial scent is incredibly fruity but this dies down within just a few seconds. What's left is a gentle and delicate sugary sweetness and a lovely warmth. It is no way childish and it is quite clever how Dior has managed to create match sweetness with sophistication successfully. The musk is very subtle and the main scents that I can detect are strawberry and caramel.

The aroma is gentle and it doesn't seem to increase in its intensity no matter how you apply. It is one of those scents that becomes a part of you rather than being an additional aroma and that's what I love so much about it. It smells warm, romantic and enchanting.

Its staying power isn't fantastic and although it lasts for hours, I need to reapply the perfume when moving from night to day. It isn't incredibly strong from the minute you apply it and it seems to just fade away within five hours. It doesn't really linger on items of clothing either so I think this bottle will be used up quickly in comparison to other fragrances that I own.

You need quite a few squirts of this fragrance to gain an appropriate level of the scent. Due to this fact, I can get a little carried away with spraying it in comparision to the two or three spritzes of my old faithful Paco Rabanne. I get comments about the perfume when people are near me and they are all positive. I don't think it is the sort of scent that could be offensive to anyone and never gets sickly.

All in all, this is a great perfume for women of all ages. It smells expensive and screams sophistication and class but it still has that edge of fun and it flirty and romantic. It is subtle, not in your face yet is definitely there. I wish it was a little more long lasting but other than that I have no complaints.