Fracas for Men (1990)
by Robert Piguet

Average old school fragrance . It starts with lemon/lime and it ends musky . Very predictable . Please don't buy it blindly like I did . Average longevity. Not sure about silage , as I haven't worn it enough and not planning on wearing it regularly

The opening mixes a ripe-fruit accord - mandarin and a hint of apple mainly - with labdanum and bergamot, a pleasant, nice impression; I also get a distinct licorice tone. The drydown loses the freshness and changes to a patchouli with rose, the latter being a rather poor, generic and dull example of its genre. Labdanum remains present throughout that phase. The base is more wood-enriched with vanilla and peters out gradually. Projection and silage are very good for the first half of its overall longevity of nearly seven hours. In summary, the initial phase is nice, the rest quite average with some distinct weaknesses. Clearly the latter stages do not use ingredients of very high quality, but the opening is not without originality, and in some aspects reminds me of scents that were more common in the 1980s and early 1990s. Overall this hovers at the borderline between neutral and just positive, and the first phase and decent longevity make it scrape into the thumbs-up - just.

Decent tobacco leather scent

The fact that this is discontinued is nothing to cry over. CUBA RED's practically identical in its tobacco/leather accord and that costs under $10, the only successful CUBA product in my book.

Why after a company take over did the new owners choose to saddle this with the name of a classic woman's scent, with which it has nothing in common, is a mystery. Perhaps they thought ladies who loved the original FRACAS, would buy this blind for the men in their lives. It didn't work.

It seems only to have been manufactured as an edc, and as such is as long lasting as CUBA RED, about half an hour.

If you can find a bottle, and want to experience it, buy it cheap, under $10, or go with CUBA RED. With both buys, you get a decent tobacco/leather scent, but nothing to rave about - no complexity at all.

Too bad it has the Piguet label on it as it would discourage first exposures to try the brand again and that would be a shame.

Pros: Decent blend of tobacco and leather - masculine but subtle
Cons: As an edc, it does not last long"

How can you mess up the rose/patchouli accord

I love the rose and patchouli notes together in the same fragrance, they seem to meld in a glorious accord that is beautiful and almost heavenly. Take the rose/patchouli of Ungaro III, the rose/patchouli of Zino, the rose/patchouli of Habit Rouge, of Giorgio for Men, of Van Cleef and Arpels pH, of Krizia's Moods, of Tsar, etc, etc, etc... wonderful perfumes that I love dearly. So I thought, well, you can't go wrong with the rose/patchouli accord, right?

Well, Fracas proved me wrong, although it is a rose/patchouli scent, it is a mess. It is not disgusting by any means, but it is so weird that I doubt I will wear it in public.

If you were to ask me as soon as I spray it, then I would hardy give half a star to this fragrance, if at all, but to be fair, although it will shock you on opening, it keeps improving with time and after a couple of hours it will be half decent at least. That's why I am giving two stars to this perfume.

Pros: Rose and patchouli
Cons: Weird

This one smells just plain weird. I usually have an open mind about fragrances, but this smells like a huge mess to me. The notes clash drastically and never seem to sort themselves out. The dry-down is the best part of the scent, but even that is a huge disappointment and not worth the wait. Fracas for men is powerful, I'll give it that.