Hi all you Little Fragrance Monsters,

So it’s not news that Lady Gaga has a fragrance released by her own The Haus Laboratories Paris and the historic house of Coty. You won’t be surprised to hear that it’s the first black Eau de Parfum. The bottle is pretty cool looking in pictures, like a Thierry Mugler cuff treatment or a freaky fascinator for the races. The ads have been wonderful homages and pastiches and have included enough excellent visual content, costume, make up, art direction and lighting to almost completely obscure the fact that we are being sold the same fruit tingle, soft jube, fizzy, fruity, 100% artificial pap that nearly every other celeb and quite a few of the expensive big boys are bottling and calling perfume.

WTF? Lady Gaga, you have let us down. Your promises of an olfactory adventure, the blood & semen accord, the outrage and scandal of your brilliant advertising that hits your target market dead on have all lead to this slightly fizzy dross? Oh yeah!! You know your target market. You know that this has been what is served to them since they started thinking fragrance, you want to sell stuff not make a gesture, not teach a lesson, not change the board but play to it. Smart! It’s not bad, just derivative and BORING Boring boring ZZZZZZZZZZzzzz

Instead of venting my spleen here I decided to do something different. I took FAME by Lady Gaga to Trivia last night thinking I would get the crowds reaction because many of my players are the target market, here’s how that turned out.

I was wearing FAME and the first thing that happened when I walked in was a question about my fragrance and a compliment on it. I had my dinner as everyone was arriving and was chatting and welcoming everyone over the next 40 minutes. As we got started on the trivia I asked if anyone would like to smell my pre Aussie release import of FAME and a surprising amount of hands went up. Thank goodness I’d ordered a 5ml  decant! So around the room I went spraying on a couple of wrists at each table and folks, the place smelled absolutely gorgeous. Those opening notes are really great en mass in a large room with no other scent distractions. Everyone was huffing away at themselves from 18 to 80 years old and it really smelled wonderful.

Even as they were leaving 2 hours later I was getting fragrant wafts of fruity fizz, not strong but still quite nice and everyone had really enjoyed being the first Aussies to get a go at it. Some even going as far as to say that they would definitely be purchasing a bottle when it is released here later this month. So what do I know? Bloody nothing obviously. It’s a hit across the board. All ages and sexes were entranced by FAME.

Fragrantica gives these featured accords: Belladonna, incense, honey, saffron, apricot, Sambac jasmine, tiger orchid

On me the opening zips, fizzes and sizzles and that must be the apricot and saffron, there is also a very clean white flower that has been completely stripped of its sensuality. After about an hour it becomes much quieter and stays quite linear after the initial rush. I feel that there is no base holding the fragrance down. I would have liked some real depth to centre it a little more. Somewhere in the 3-4 hour area it becomes too soft for me to notice much other than that it is not my skin but something sweeter, almost but not quite milk and fairy floss, or DAIRY DROSS. I can’t say after wearing it for 2 days that I hate it but I don’t love it and wish I had more of a reason to purchase the bottle, but no…..

What fragrance have you been let down by lately? You know, the build up and hype had you HYPErventilating till you tried it? Please leave me a message in the comments. I love this kind of insight.

I hope you’re having a great day, if not the good times will roll around soon enough so please endure the crap.
Love always,
Portia xx

All Videos and Photos stolen Fragrantica