I first became aware of the musical genre known as a mash-up with the 2005 song Numb/Encore by Linkin Park and Jay-Z. The idea is to find a common ground between two genres and create something totally new out of the two songs. In Numb/Encore Jay-Z’s rhymes are laid over the plaintive rock backtrack of Linkin Park’s lyrics and guitars. It gave me some new insight into both of the originals and I came to really like the combination as much as the pieces which made it up. I was reminded of this with the latest release by Romano Ricci of Juliette Has A Gun called Mad Madame as it felt like a mash-up of two of his previous releases; Lady Vengeance and Not a Perfume.

If there are two signatures of the Juliette Has A Gun line it is rose and the synthetic woody aromachemical Ambroxan. Many of the line contain rose and almost all of them have Ambroxan. In fact Not A Perfume was nothing but Ambroxan in a bottle. It has always made the appreciation of Juliette Has A Gun problematic for me because I find Ambroxan to be the olfactory equivalent of an irritating whistle that I can’t tune out. Needless to say Not A Perfume is not going to be found on my dresser, or body. But that is my personal preference and I know many, many others like the modern feel it brings to fragrances. In the case of Mad Madame M. Ricci, supposedly by accident, added a huge overdose of Ambroxan. With that amount of Ambroxan in place he chose to use rose oxide to produce a spiky mohawked rose to stand up to the onslaught. Besides the rose and Ambroxan the only other note of note is blackcurrant bud which adds a green fruity facet to everything.

Metallic Roses by Nana Leder

Mad Madame opens up with the rose oxide on top and it provides an almost sci-fi kind of rose with metallic highlights. The blackcurrant bud also shows up pretty early and it adds a closed up green berry quality as an underpinning. Then like a distant freight train the Ambroxan begins to sound its approach. Pretty soon it has arrived like a primal force and surprisingly the rose and blackcurrant don’t entirely get out of the way and after things settle down a bit they actually begin to hold their own but they are afloat on a sea of Ambroxan.

Mad Madame has outstanding longevity and above average sillage.

Not My Testing Panel

I had to go get some non-Ambroxan-phobic opinions about this as I wore it for a few days. The feeling of those I asked to give it a sniff were unanimously "Mad" about it. So I think this is a case where you have to take my preferences into account over your own. If you like Ambroxan, and particularly if you were a fan of Not A Perfume, Mad Madame shows what can be accomplished when you turn the Ambroxan into a perfume. You get a thoroughly modern mash-up of Lady Vengeance and Not A Perfume.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Europerfumes.

Thanks to Europerfumes we have a 50mL full bottle of Mad Madame to giveaway. To be eligible leave comment if you want to waft Mad Madame and  your favorite Juliette Has a Gun Perfume. The draw will close on December 12, 2012.

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor