Lattafa Harlequin Cream 75ml: What It Smells Like

Lattafa Harlequin Cream is a 75ml eau de parfum that smells like striped ice cream. Strawberry and chocolate come through over whipped cream and waffle, and it settles into vanilla, cocoa and a soft musk. Lattafa sells it as unisex, and it belongs to their Give Me Gourmand line.

The name is the clue to the whole thing. Harlequin is the three-colour ice cream, and that is exactly what Lattafa has put in the bottle.

The short version What it is: A 75ml eau de parfum, worn by men and women. Smells like: Strawberry and milk chocolate over cream, with a waffle note and a vanilla finish. Character: Sweet, soft and comforting. A dessert fragrance with no sharp edges. Wear it: Everyday wear, autumn and winter, close-range rather than filling a room. Worth knowing: It stays near the skin, so it is a quiet gourmand rather than a loud one.

The short version

• What it is: A 75ml eau de parfum, worn by men and women.
• Smells like: Strawberry and milk chocolate over cream, with a waffle note and a vanilla finish.
• Character: Sweet, soft and comforting. A dessert fragrance with no sharp edges.
• Wear it: Everyday wear, autumn and winter, close-range rather than filling a room.
• Worth knowing: It stays near the skin, so it is a quiet gourmand rather than a loud one.

Lattafa HARLEQUIN CREAM Fragrance Notes:

• Top Notes: Ice cream.
• Middle Notes: Whipped Cream, Waffle.
• Base Notes: Vanilla, Musk, Cocoa.

Only six notes, which is unusually few, and every one of them is a dessert rather than a perfumery material. Lattafa has written a recipe here instead of a note list, and the shortness of it is honest: this fragrance is doing one thing.

You will also see a shorter three-note version of this list in circulation, giving only strawberry, milk chocolate and vanilla. It describes the same fragrance in less detail rather than a different one, since Neapolitan ice cream is those three flavours.

What Lattafa Harlequin Cream smells like

The opening is strawberry and chocolate together rather than one after the other, which is what makes it read as ice cream instead of as fruit. The strawberry is the sweet creamy kind you get in a tub, not a fresh berry, and the chocolate alongside it is milk chocolate rather than anything dark or bitter.

Underneath that sits cream, and this is the part that does the work. Whipped cream softens the fruit and the chocolate into one thing, and a waffle note gives a baked, biscuity dryness that stops the whole thing being purely sweet.

That waffle note is the detail worth paying attention to. It is the cone rather than the ice cream, and it is why Lattafa Harlequin Cream smells like a dessert you are holding rather than a flavour on its own.

The finish is simple and warm. Vanilla and cocoa settle in with a soft musk behind them, and it stays close to the skin. This is not a fragrance that announces itself from across a room.

Why it is called Harlequin Cream

Because Harlequin is an ice cream. In Italy the striped strawberry, vanilla and chocolate block is gelato arlecchino, named after Arlecchino, the Commedia dell'Arte character who wears a costume of coloured diamonds. English speakers know the same thing as Neapolitan ice cream.

That is the reference Lattafa is working from, and their own description points straight at it. Once you know the name, the fragrance makes complete sense: strawberry, chocolate and vanilla are the three stripes, and the cream and waffle are what you eat them in.

It also tells you how to judge it. Lattafa Harlequin Cream is not reaching for a sophisticated abstract blend. It is trying to smell like a specific childhood dessert, and on that measure it succeeds.

Harlequin Cream or Matcha Swirl?

These two sit next to each other in the same line and both rest on cream and vanilla, so this is a fair question. The difference is what cuts the sugar.

Lattafa Harlequin Cream has nothing cutting it, and that is deliberate. Strawberry, chocolate, cream and vanilla all pull in the same sweet direction, and the only thing holding it back is the dry waffle note. It is the softer, more comforting and more straightforwardly sweet of the two.

Matcha Swirl has a green bitter note running through it, which makes it the easier one to wear for a full day and the better choice if sweetness usually defeats you.

Put simply: Harlequin Cream is ice cream, Matcha Swirl is ice cream with something green in it. Pick by how much sweetness you actually enjoy.

Who should buy Lattafa Harlequin Cream, and who should not

Buy it if you want a comforting sweet fragrance for cold weather and you do not want it to be loud. It sits close, it smells like dessert, and it is the kind of thing you wear because you enjoy it rather than to make an impression.

It also works well as a first gourmand. There is nothing difficult or unusual in it, the reference is immediately recognisable, and it is far easier to like than a heavy spiced or boozy sweet fragrance.

Do not buy it if you want projection. The official description says it stays near the skin, and a quiet fragrance is a poor choice if you want to be noticed from a distance.

Skip it too if sweet fragrances give you a headache. There is no green note, no spice and no bitterness here to break the sugar up, and this is sweet from beginning to end.