Reviews of Fracas (1948)
by Robert Piguet

My feelings were mixed when I decided to track down a small amount of Fracas to try. From all that I'd read about it I came away with the impression that no self-respecting perfumista would be caught dead without some form of that scent in her wardrobe. However, I don't care for big florals. Up until now the only experience I had with it was a couple of spritzes on a department store paper tester, so I was waiting to find it in parfum form so that I could get the full experience. I managed to find a 3 ml mini pure parfum last week for under $10. Almost everyone seems to love this and I don't think all of those people are wrong. It's me. I tried, but I cannot take overly floral scents, especially when they are linear.To me this is what happens with too much of a good thing:there are too many flowers here and the other notes that should give it a little more balance, don't. All this tension between the floral and the "dark" that supposedly earns this scent it's name, doesn't happen on me. It stays much too floral and shrill on me all the way through, then just disappears. I can imagine that if you like florals, this is absolutely wonderful, so I'm not giving it a thumbs down because I think is an awful or badly made scent, I'm giving it a thumbs down as a "heads up" for anybody who is trying to steer clear of big florals, and because it doesn't work for me.

the first time I sampled it on a paper strip I thought it smelled nice. Today I put it on my skin. It took on a very chemical overtone and then it dried down to a sour butter smell. After 3 hours, disappeared completely. Not worth the price tag.

Blech. This smelled on me like those little pink balls of soap you can get for your guest bathroom. All I could smell was soap, soap, soap. Too bad...I had high hopes for this one.

I can tell you precisely what Fracas smells like to me: A wilted tuberose bouquet discarded inside an empty microwave popcorn bag labeled "artificial butter flavoring." That funky oil smell you can detect as you walk down the grocery aisle by the microwave popcorn has been mixed with sweet flowers that have just started to decay.

Fracas is like a weapon of mass destruction. It’s this grossly over sweetened tuberose based fragrance. Its thick and headache inducing. One spray lasts about one entire year. I wouldn’t have so much of a problem if it wasn’t some one dimensional and linear. I much prefer L’Artisans Tuberose, which I own an entire bottle of.