Parisian charm: Paris Cheri from Astrophil & Stella

This perfume was officially released at the end of 2021, and it is the highlight of 2022! I first tried Paris Cheri at Pitti Fragranze niche perfume trade show in September 2021 in Florence before it was launched, and it was love at first sniff. You just can’t resist the cloud of floral-gourmand-fresh-powdery goodness that caresses the soul after reaching the nostrils.

Paris Cheri is a perfume with just three simple notes: Parisian morning + Parisian café + Parisian pâtisserie. And this could be the end of the review. Because that’s all you need to know before you run to the (online) store of your convenience to buy it. It’s that good! It was created by my favorite perfumer Nathalie Feisthauer, who perfectly captured the atmosphere of the City of Lights as it wakes up on a warm summer morning.

Paris Cheri is 100% Parisian mood. Both of the real beautiful Paris I remember from my many travels there, and of the idealized romantic Paris that lives in our dreams thanks to popular culture. So much so that if Emily in Paris, the most recent TV-screen Parisian dream girl, had a signature scent, it would be Paris Cheri.

Update: Astrophil & Stella have released an evening counterpart to Paris Cheri – Madame M, both by Nathalie Feisthauer. Read about it here!

It’s a light, fluffy cloud of vanilla and cinnamon escaping the pastry shop where pretty little treats are being laid out on display that is catching up with you as you sit down at a table of a nearby café, enjoying your first coffee of the day. The dewy morning air is filled with sounds of the awakening city. You watch the flower shop getting its delivery of snow-white lilies-of-the-valley that send a fresh, crisp floral jingle through yours nostrils. The girl at the other table, casually checking her lipstick in the mirror of her powder compact, orders a cocoa and a hazelnut chocolate brownie. Life is good, the day is yours!

The little frosted glass bottle contains extrait de parfum – a very concentrated juice that lends this effortless and light-filled fragrance great longevity and projection. This light cloud of positive emotions stays with you almost all day, delighting both you and everybody around you.

Paris Cheri was conceived by Nathalie Feisthauer in her Parisian atelier. I have yet to find a fragrance composed by her that I don’t like. It’s as if she somehow knows how to hit my pleasure centers every single time. As for this fragrance – I’m not the only one who has fallen under its spell. Everybody who tried it at Pitti Fragranze was raving about it, just like the friends of mine who already bought it after hearing me confessing my love for it on Instagram.

The composition elicits immediate positive emotions, so it does not invite the wearer to conduct deep and complicated analysis.

Yet it needs to be noted that it is masterfully constructed – the bergamot opening is swiftly replaced by the pâtisserie air filled with vanilla and cinnamon cookies. They seamlessly melt into the creamy and velvety hazelnut milk chocolate accord that takes us to the next door café already serving drinks and treats. The note of black slightly bitter-metallic coffee intensifies the café vibe without pushing too far into the foreground. It stays delicately in the back, not drawing too much attention, yet perfectly setting the central scene and preventing the sweet vanilla, cinnamon and chocolate from leaving an overly sugary impression.

This gourmand part of the fragrance is wrapped in a thin transparent white floral veil that brings two main qualities with it – light texture given by the powdery sensation of iris (far from lipstick-y or boudoir-like, just enough to help your imagination picture the finest flour and sugar powder used in the exquisite pâtisserie), as well as dewy-fresh, cool and crisp zing of lily-of-the-valley.

It is as if you could really see the scene unfold before your eyes – while sitting at a café table, you watch the nearby macaron bakery getting ready to open its doors on the one side, and the flower shop receiving the early morning flower delivery on the other. Throw in some romantic music and your Paris fantasy is ready! The fragrance is uplifting because it has the main quality ascribed to Parisian ladies – effortlessness. Its carefree, cheerful mood is very chic and absolutely charming.

And if you’d like the story to have a bit more substance, keep in mind that the name Paris Cheri chosen by Astrophil & Stella comes from a song about Paris performed by Josephine Baker, who was one of the brightest stars of the city back in the day. You can listen to it here.

If you are now ready to get your bottle of this charming wonder, I have good news – Astrophil & Stella have a very good retail network almost all over the world, so buying Paris Cheri is really easy. You can view the full list of perfumeries carrying the brand here. At home in Italy you can find it, among others, at Spray Parfums. In Germany live in Parfumsalon Berlin in the capital and online on beauty-concept-shop.de among others. Because I know and love Beauty Concept Shop, I have teamed up with them to give you a sweet 5% discount with the code YANA5 if you enter it at checkout (I’m not after commission and don’t get any, it’s just a service and gift for my readers). Of course, the distribution network of Astrophil & Stella is much larger, and it’s worth checking if there is a shop in your area where you can try everything before you buy.

By the way, check out another fragrance with a 100% Parisian soul that I love here.

If you had to pick one thing that reminds you of Paris, what would it be? Croissants, cafés, Louvre, Eiffel Tower…?

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