Robert Piguet Fracas

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If you want tuberose, you usually don’t have to look far. The fragrance industry is inundated with tuberose scents. From the highest end to the shower gels. Sometimes tuberose is even masquerading as gardenia. But if you want a really bold, really classic, very true tuberose, you get Fracas. Fracas

In Bottle: Powerful hit of sweet tropical, juicy, slightly rubbery tuberose. Fracas is very strong. I want to come out and warn you of that right away or I would feel bad. Aside from its strength it’s a lovely thing. It smells like the times must have been like back then, elegant and classy with a bold streak.

Applied: Wet rubbery tuberose with a sweetness added to it. This smells like a giant bouquet of flowers with a dominant tuberose the size of a skyscraper. The flowers, despite all their best efforts, are secondary to the tuberose that’s so massive and appealing that it can’t really scream any louder than it does in this fragrance. Unlike most people, and you shouldn’t go by what I say, I don’t consider tuberose as a sultry flower. It smells like slick rubbery floral to me and that’s about as far as I can take it. If you do happen to think tuberose smells sultry, then Fracas is sultry in a bottle. As the scent progresses, you start to wonder if it will ever end as not only is Fracas fantastic in terms of projection, its longevity is to be complimented too. There’s a subtle spiciness to Fracas if you wait her out long enough which gives the tuberose something to talk to as up until that spiciness, all I had was a big white floral.

Extra: Fracas was released in 1948 and is a classic by all accounts and purposes. It has become the go to scent for tuberose and its reputation is well deserved. It has survived this long as a reference and a piece of history and I’d like to believe it’ll survive for a good six decades too if you never wash it off.

Design: The eau de parfum is bottled in a fairly plain black bottle with hot pink lettering depicting the fragrance’s name and house name. Not Earth shattering in appearance but you don’t buy Fracas for the bottle.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Green notes, mandarin, bergamot, hyacinth, geranium, peach, tuberose, jasmine, orange flower, white iris, lily of the valley, violet, jonquil, carnation, coriander, balsam, vetiver, orris, sandlawood, moss, cedar, musk.

If someone hadn’t pointed me to that massive list of notes, I never would have believed it. Just as a point of interest because I know someone might be looking for this, you pronounce Robert Piguet like, “Row-Behr Peeg-Gehy”. You pronounce Fracas as, “Frah-Cah”.

Reviewed in This Post: Fracas, 2002, Eau de Parfum.

Jean Paul Gaultier Ma Dame

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Ma Dame has one of the most addictive and fun commercials I’ve seen as of date. It features international It Girl, Agyness Deyn, with a snappy song and a great dynamic series of cuts showing the rejection of order and embrace of rebel and style. But like all fragrances, I advocate smelling the actual juice. The fragrance itself doesn’t really follow its marketing image. Ma Dame

In Bottle: Fruity, sweet and candy-like. This is floral too and has a strangely clean cotton candy scent to it. Now that’s just a bit odd as when I think cotton candy, the last thing I think is clean but hey, Ma Dame.

Applied: Flowers, sugar and citrus, big chunks of sugar and a ripe orange thrown in for good measure. At the heart of this fragrance is a lovely floral mixed in with the sweetness, like candied flowers covered in citrus clean. There something lemony to this because I can smell a very strong, sharp citrus trying to overcome the other notes. Ma Dame is a strong scent with lots of sillage. It’s projection will reach an impressive distance so use it sparingly if you’re going to be in an enclosed space with others. She’s a nice fragrance though with a bright and spicy little kick to her. The dry down is a sweet woodsy affair.

Extra: Ma Dame is by Jean Paul Gaultier, a French fashion designer well known for his haute couture and conceptual fashion items. You may recognize some of his work adorning the likes of Marilyn Manson.

Design: Ma Dame is bottled in glass with a female figure recessed into it. The figure is a throwback to Gaultier’s usual bottle style in the shape of a woman. The glass has a nice orange pink sheen to it. This one is pleasant to look at but I’ve always found the body shape bottles to be a bit too much.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Orange zest, rose, musk, cedar wood.

I wouldn’t refer to Ma Dame as an order rejecting fragrance. It’s a nice tweak from the usual fruity floral fare but it has a long way to go before it rejects anything. The sweet floral is pleasant though it can be a bit much–especially if someone mistakes this fragrance for a wilting lily and bathes themselves in it, thus causing a 100 mile radius cloud of pink scent to perpetually swirl about them like a sugary tornado.

Reviewed in This Post: Ma Dame, 2010, Eau de Toilette.