Madness Chopard 2001 Eau de Parfum

Chopards Madness is a bit mad, in a good way. When first sprayed you think it's pepper-spray (literally) but hold on! Give it a chance! If you allow it to settle, a beautiful rosewood note thanks you for it and gets slowly accompanied by hibiscus and something sweet, not cotton candy to my nose but definitely litchi. This one is not for everyone, you could even say it's an acquired taste.

I love notorious Ladies like: Cabochard, Bandit, Magie Noire, etc. so, I am not quickly daunted by "heavy" characters and this one is a heavy character for sure, bordering on unisex but somehow a strong feminine, elegant dry down prevents it from being too masculine. This one is best 'let out' during evening, and is definitely one you should not buy blind!
The silage is great, the longevity is 5+ hours on me. It's a powdery pepper with a woodsy (almost incense-like) edge, wrapped in a hint of florals and sprinkled with a dash of litchi. Madness, but I like it.

Madness represents my childhood in lots of ways. Not in the mad aspect but from the way it smells.

From the first spray on the skin this fragrance was strong and fruity. I sensed strong candied raspberry, even though it is not listed here. I was always one of those strange kids that loved raspberry cordial with only a small amount of water. I hated heavily diluted cordial. Madness is that rich, syrupy red, raspberry flavoured cordial. It smells just like it.

I can understand that for some people this is sickly, but to me this is rich and sweet, the way I like it. Slightly masculine, but feminine and elegant at the same time, Madness can be rather conflicting.

The heart of rose and hibiscus reminds me of my mother's garden before she pulled them out and replaced them with a cactus garden. I used to take the petals and mash them up in a bowl of hot water to make what I called "flower soup" as a child.

The drydown which is mostly fairyfloss, I'm sure is a smell that most people remember as a child. The woodsy notes that compliment the sugary sweet fairyfloss makes me think of a Circus. The smell of sawdust and candy polluting the air.

A strange fragrance it certainly is, but a lovely one at that. For me the experience is entirely personal, but for others you may find other similarities to your childhood and if you don't you may just like Madness simply because of the composition. Either way I recommend.

I would say that Madness really has a split personality, so the name fits juice very well! The way it develops is shocking every time I wear it. The opening is sharp like a razor, as nose-burning as the smell of wasabi. (No, it does NOT smell like wasabi at all! It's just the best example I can give.) To be honest I find that opening to be the worst and most godawful I've encounted to this day. It takes a long time - up to 45 minutes mintues before it changes noticably. At that point it turns into a very soft, non-offending skin scent - that type of scent that is hard to remember the next day. Odd, but definitely interesting. I've given it several chances, but I have to give up. Most of the time I can wait for an umpleasant opening to wear off, but not this time. The heart and base aren't interesting enough to be worth the suffering, especially not when it takes this long. Not recommended as a blind buy! Still, it's very pleasant if you can wait for it. But in case you like the opning, there's a risk you will be disappointed later on. Normally I'm fond of "chameleon fragrances" as I call them, but sadly, not this time.

This intoxicating aroma with the blendings of Pink Pepper Brazilian Rosewood rose yummy cotten candy pink litchi and i pick a scent of raspberry
in this perfume. deep sultry it wasn't
what i expected i expected more pungent
like with a cinnamon note but it a has a more deeper more laqcard woodsey
scent i just love the bottle i love
the Deep Red and the shape is a reminisence of a 1980's videogame Design i just love

...was my first thought after spraying it on. I wore it for the first time today and still don't know whether I should be horrified or excited.
It was a blind buy, and although I had my doubts about the rose (rose rarely suits me), I just had to have it. The name attracted me like magic ;-)

The opening is extreme; I smell lychee and pepper equally strong, I almost had to sneeze. The combination is nonetheless captivating.
However, the transition to the heart note made me briefly stagger. As I feared: I find the rose horrendous at first, stuffy, soapy. And I perceive it strongly, probably precisely because I don’t like it.
Fortunately, it is quickly caught by woody tones. I had to (and wanted to) push through that. The base is thankfully not as terribly cloyingly sweet as I had expected, actually quite pleasantly sweet-woody.

Now I would like to describe the scent visually. I imagine 'Madness' like a hallucinogenic drug high. You see pink elephants (or whatever), which frightens you, yet you have to laugh.
And if I had to personify 'Madness', it would be the little creepy girl from a horror movie, holding a teddy bear in one hand and a huge cotton candy fluff in the other. The girl responsible for the unexplained deaths in the film ;-)

Now I have gone off on a tangent - as has been said here, genius and madness are closely related. I'm afraid I need to test this perfume more often to be able to decide and evaluate. Until then, it remains without a rating from me for now.

(Uh, do I automatically give a scent 0% if I don't rate it after a comment? If so, I will give a provisional 70%, which may still change.)