Ma Dame (2009)
by Jean Paul Gaultier

I get a real kick out of this. It is just so darn tacky.

If you fancy something silly, fizzy, kind of daft with zero pretentions towards being classy or elegant, this is what you need. Life is hard enough without us all going for understated elegance. It is a pick me up, and I don't think it is particularly loud or offensive on the bus.

The only one you need to please is yourself. I was a bit dubious but eventually talked myself into the smallest bottle, and unlike all my classy, understated frags this one is nearly empty. It makes me smile.

One of the top chefs round here has combined haute cuisine with a kindergarten kind of presentation. The soup comes in watering cans etc. You laugh at the way your meal looks and then really enjoy the taste. That is what this feels like to me. Who needs sophisticated elegance when you can have plastic coated orange zing?

This is wonderful stuff! Very unisex IMO but then again there really is little difference these days. Fruity/floral opening but the wood and musk comes through almost exactly at the same time which gives this the quirkiness we come to expect from Gaultier. Very modern and "now" but with a wonderful quirky (but VERY wearable) twist!

Promoted as a fresh-floral, Ma Dame is anything but this. Yes, it’s largely a floral affair but it’s certainly not fresh (although I will admit that it’s also not as heavy as Gaultier’s previous high-profile releases).

The opening is a fizzy (but slightly muted) acidic orange accord but this disappears within a matter of seconds – personally, the fleeting opening was the only evidence of freshness here. The emergence of the sweet floral notes (listed as rose and grenadine but I could hardly detect any rose) come across as unashamedly synthetic, while the cedar gradually emerges and blends with the florals during its development. Even though the cedar becomes more prominent during the drydown, by this point, I couldn’t escape the feeling that it had transformed into an even bigger mess than at the beginning.

Ma Dame is far less ‘innovative’ and provocative than previous releases, and actually reminds me of a toned down Gaultier2. It also lacks the androgyny of its predecessors, smelling more girlie and plasticky than originally expected. Ma Dame is nothing earth shattering and I’m sure there are dozens of similar floral scents (regardless of how synthetic they are) capable of providing a more satisfactory result.

[Original submission date: 26 September 2008]

"...but ours is one louder"
Shirley Temple kind of fruity notes with citrus. If you could smell the neon at the Flamingo in Vegas, this is what it would smell like. Nice idea, but so very, very loud.

I kinda like the orange but that's about it, it is too sweet and synthetic for me.

good thing is, if you like it, the sillage is ok. I spritzed it on my ankle and calf to keep it far from my nose but it was useless (well, I'm a little short, my nose is not that far from my ankles, but it usually works with other perfumes), I could still smell it as if it was on my neck and arms.

But in spite of not liking it, I didn't think it was such a bad scent. Maybe some people will like it, maybe some skins will make it better.
:)

I have never smelt a perfume that disgusting!
I am sorry to be that negative and I am usually not that sensitive with fragrances but after smelling this on me I had to run to wash it away and still felt sick afterwards.
It smells like a mix between baby powder and cream and very very dominant flours... oh yes there was citrus too and probably a thousand other things that did not make it any better. I agree with the fact that it smelled definitely synthetic...
Fact is I did not like it on myself and I would certainly not like it on anybody else either.