Mainstream Monday – Sniffing a Popular Perfume
I haven’t bothered reviewing Fame earlier and I don’t know why I’m doing it now. The deal with Fame is that it doesn’t matter what the black juice in the claw covered bottle smells like; Lady Gaga’s millions of Little Monsters will buy it. And they’ll love it. This is how fandom works. It doesn’t matter if perfume people love it or hate it. Perfume people don’t drive the sales.
Despite knowing that we aren’t the drivers of sales and knowing this is a celeb scent constructed by Coty, we still want to try it. Even the perfume world fell for the hype, the wait, the weird things Gaga said during interviews. We wanted to try it, probably to confirm that we *knew* it would be a disappointment; a few of us hoped to be surprised. Bottom line – this is a celeb scent. Nothing more, nothing less.
Fame opens as peach Jolly Ranchers and grape Kool-Aid. It’s sweet and fruity and very “celeb scent”. It gets more syrupy and reminds me of grape cough syrup. With time I get a mix of white florals and an ambery muskiness. It’s familiar and has been done before.
Lady Gaga Fame is not bad and isn’t good. It’s unmemorable. That is the worst thing anyone can ever say about a perfume. When I’m not smelling it, I forget about it. And because of this I have no desire to wear it.
Notes listed include belladonna, incense, apricot, honey drops, tiger orchid, and jasmine sambac. Launch date 2012. PERFUMER – ? Maybe someone is ashamed. I can find the names of the bottle designer and who shot the ads, but nothing on the perfumer.
Try Fame if you like that style of muskier fruity florals that we find in celeb scents or perfumes like Paco Rabanne Lady Million, Cacharel Amour Amour, Juicy Couture Couture, and/or Illamasqua Freak. Personally I think anyone can wear Fame since you won’t be able to smell it 15 minutes after it is applied.
My beef with Fame is that it has below average projection and longevity. I seriously use hair products that linger around longer than this perfume. It seems “watered” down.
Fame comes in 3 sizes with prices ranging from $42-$79 at Sephora.
Victoria’s Final EauPINION – I can’t remember anything after the grape Kool-Aid. Very little projection, very little going on. A disappointment. It’s a disappointment as a perfume and it’s a disappointment because it does not match “Gaga’s” image or the hype.
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I happened to be in Sephora scouting out nail polish (I know this because it was the day I bought the world’s best nail polish, Illamasqua Phallic) right when this was released. After all the hype, I was like, well, I have to smell it, I suppose. And I got exactly what you got: Kool Aid and disappointment. So much for it smelling like a cheap prostitute or whatever she said. The SA gave me a sample vial because they had made up a million of them, and I was like, yeah I don’t think I’ll need to revisit this scent ever again, but it’s a funny thing to keep in my sample box.
ricky blue recently posted..Chelly Nail Color
I think she said “expensive prostitute” 😉 which makes this perfume even more absurd.
Keep the sample as a Kool-Aid reference for your sample kit.
Hey, thanks for the link! I agree with you: it sucks. What’s disappointing is that Lady Gaga could have made an interesting perfume and made just as much of a killing on it because of her name.
Joan recently posted..Rien by Etat Libre d’Orange
I completely agree. That is why it bothers me so much. I think so many of us where hoping a risk would be taken…and it wasn’t. 🙁
I got sent this one for review, and I didn’t like it at all! So I agree with your review.
Hope you found someone that does like it and made their day 🙂
I quite like Gaga and I confess I expeted something weird from her. When I saw the notes I imagined other things.
The fact is this smells on me lke powdery apricots and nothing else. It doesn’t project and doesn’t last at all. Totallt forgetable scent. Boring.
Two weeks later, I tried Cacharel LouLou and I adored it… fruits, incense and spices, just what you would expect after reading Fame’s notes (maybe without knowing it’s Gaga’s). LouLou is what Fame wanted to be but failed.
There’s a good thing though. Can you imagine all those Little Monsters bathed in Fame if that fragrace was as strong as LouLou or Poison or a niche?
It was just that I couldn’t smell it. With her showy looks and outspoken personality, I expected BIG. But, this wasn’t. It’s soft and delicate. And you know, you’re right. Did we want all her fans walking around wearing a strong perfume? No. High school teachers would start banning the stuff 😉
Oh, LouLou, what a gem! That is one that I need to pull out of my stash and start wearing again.
I love LouLou and it’s quite funny as I have mostly florals and that one.
I believe it’s a bit too much for me, though. But I found Le Paradis de Cacharel, which is a collection of 15 ml bottles of their scents. I bought a bottle of Amor Amor and one of LouLou for a extremely low price. I’m quite annoyed with myself though, I should have bought a bottle of Eden and Noa, too.
I just bought a bottle of Eden about a month ago 🙂 And Noa the week after that 🙂
[…] is a cough syrup-like plum with blackberry jam. This opening reminds me of what I can remember from Lady Gaga Fame. And there is a smoldering head shop style vanilla-scented incense in the background. The heart of […]
[…] me to find in Seattle (wasn’t launched in US until 2015). And B. I didn’t really like Gaga Fame (and many people did). Oh, and C. I’ve been burnt on so many celeb scents in the past that I […]