Bottle Design:
Nick Knight, Lady GaGa

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Fame Lady Gaga 2012

6.2 / 10 321 Ratings

A perfume by Lady Gaga for women, released in 2012. The scent is sweet-fruity. It was last marketed by Coty.
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Main accords

Sweet

Fruity

Floral

Synthetic

Smoky

Fragrance Notes

Honey

Apricot

Frankincense Saffron

Saffron

Belladonna

Tiger orchid Jasmine

Jasmine

Perfumers

Richard Herpin, Honorine Blanc, Nathalie Lorson

Ratings

Scent

6.2321 Ratings

Longevity

6.2226 Ratings

Sillage

6.1226 Ratings

Bottle

7.9268 Ratings

Value for money

7.656 Ratings

Submitted by Kankuro, last update on 06/24/2025.

Interesting Facts

The advertising campaign was photographed by Steven Klein.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Lady Diamond

Celebrity

Black Rose

Diamond Kiss

Crazy Glamour

Black Amber Eau de Toilette

Reviews

48 in-depth fragrance descriptions

08/26/2012

jtd
484 Reviews

jtd

Top Review 9

Infamy

Thank god perfume has the capacity to reveal truths that current mass media cannot. If you were to believe the visual imagery, the music, the PR, you’d assume that Justin Bieber was the tween idol and Gaga was the Edgy Artist who Will Not be Restrained ©. But Bieber’s perfume, with its stagnant topnotes becomes a kool aid made with non-potable water and has at least some edge.

Gaga’s scentscape of the mall shows that she’s the true tween queen. The shock appeal of stunts like the meat dress and Drastic Fashion is transformed in this perfume into the shockingly banal. Fame is a cloying, simple fruit soup. It rides a tight line between the dual sensibilities of 1) yet another faceless vapid floriberry, and, 2) worse.

Born this way? Reductionist, but that’s where the pendulum has swung and I get it. Smell this way? Good lord, no.

09/06/2012

4Scent 7.5Sillage

Ysbrand
84 Reviews

Ysbrand

Top Review 10

The Fame

Today, as i entered in my local perfume store, i couldn´t but realize something different in the shop assistants (mostly lovely ladies, over their forties): their ususal elegant black uniform were accesorized with clownish mini top-hats, neon-colored feather boas and gothic lace mittens. They frankly looked like some Moulin Rouge´s sale-of-the-day. Surprised by the change of style, the first thing that came to my lips when one of the dignity-stripped smiling matrons came to welcome me was: "What are we celebrating?" She seemed dazed for one second "Oh! I keep forgeting i am dressed THIS way... it is because of the launching of Gaga´s new perfume" So, i see, Gaga´s shadow is long... they even had a top-less dude with eyeliner at the other door spraying people with Fame!

I am guessing this is probably the most expensive launching of a perfume ever.

For a start the black juice left a grey shadow on the paper, so i wouldnt spray it on a nice white shirt. Fame opens with a piercing note of grape and peach candy. It is, well, the next thing that comes after sweet. Very mouth-watering, fun and über young, i admit, but nothing i would like to wear. Of course i am not one of the teenagers this fragance is aimed for. After this fruity car-air freshener feeling the fragance sets into something we have smelled eight million times: a just pleasant, random, gourmand/fruity floral that hardly someone could have something to have any objections against.

I detect mostly notes of apricot-osmanthus, musk, lots of a cotton-candy note (i would go for Firmenich´ Corps Praline) and a distant shadow of a sensual flower that could be jasmine as listed, could be tuberose or anything else, and appears only now and then. As far as i know Tiger Orchids (rossioglossum) are not distinctively scented, so maybe theres orchid too, and sounds terrific.Not a noticeable saffron. The drydown is certainly incensey, bit smoky... But always inside the limits of pretty and safe.

Noone would blame me for expecting something dark, since everything from the color of the fluid to the whole campaign seemed to suggest so. In the scale of darknes being Lilith the mother of all demons a ten and Lily Munster a five, Fame is 1- Draculaura from Monster High (you will have to google this if you dont have very young daughters or nieces) Users of Fame are likely to know who is Draculaura. I honestly think that a glittery juice called Born This Way would have been more coherent with the scent.

I understand, and praise for, Coty for wanting to sell bottles. It is their business. And this will be a good seller. Campaign looks awesome, so does the bottle, and the scent wont scare anybody and smells ok. Not edgy, not freaky, not blood and semen (we have Secretions Magnifiques for that) Mainstream disguised of avant-garde monster. In the last times thats just what i expect from Gaga.

03/17/2018

CPL
4 Reviews

CPL

Very helpful Review 7

Dark & Mysterious

This perfumes is basically the reason why I started collecting perfumes. I am a huge fan of Lady Gaga and when she announced this, I had to have it. This perfume is unique for one reason: the black fluid. Have you ever seen a perfume where the liquid was black? Besides that, the box is simple and elegant. I mean who wants their first perfume to be extravagant? (Well, Gaga is extravagant and so was the commercial for this perfume lol). The bottle is simple yet very Gaga. The egg shaped bottle with an avant-garde-ish gold cap that is supposed to represent claws. Now onto the scent. When you spray it, you get that very fruity and mysterious scent which is caused by the apricot, honey and frankincense. The apricot gives this fragrance its fruity essence, the honey gives it its sweet essence and finally the frankincense gives it its mysterious essence. The jasmine and tiger orchid appear when the fragrance softens. You will smell their light trail while still smelling the notes I mentioned earlier. Overall, I really like this perfume. It's a dark fruity & mysterious scent with a floral undertone. In my opinion, this scent is a hit or miss. So, if you're interested into buying this perfume, you should try it first. I'll always remember this perfume as the reason why I started collecting perfumes.

03/06/2013

4Scent 7.5Longevity 7.5Sillage

Sherapop
1240 Reviews

Sherapop

9

Grape Laffy Taffy

Having seen all of the hullabaloo surrounding the launch of Lady Gaga's perfume FAME, I decided to pick up a sample at Sephora the last time I was there. I cannot say that I have any real interest in Lady Gaga, as I have no idea what she does. Is she a singer? A performer? A sort-of twenty-first-century Madonna (the material girl) follow-up or wannabe? I've seen some pictures of her looking rather like David Bowie back in his Ziggy Stardust days, but aside from that I've not a clue what she has done to garner such fame.

Upon applying FAME, I was sure that I had smelled this scent somewhere before. Naturally I began racking my brain for the celebrity scent which might be the closest neighbor. So many of them smell so similar, but I felt that there really was some overlap of this composition with something already in circulation. It certainly does not smell anything like any non-celebrity perfume, but could it be that FAME is close to something by Britney Spears, perhaps? I recall that the opening of CURIOUS was quite grape Koolaid-like, although the drydown was a bit better, but without the patchouli I could not really say that FAME was very much like CURIOUS.

Suddenly it dawned on me: Lady Gaga FAME smells EXACTLY like grape Laffy Taffy, which is a purple pastel-colored, artificially flavored bar of somewhat creamy taffy which I sometimes ate after school back when I was in junior high--there was a Tenneco (similar to 7-11) on my route home. The texture was similar to Beich's Bananas, but instead of featuring artificial banana flavor, Laffy Taffy featured (and may still today--I don't know whether it still exists or was pulled by the FDA) artificial grape flavor in a hold-on-to-your-fillings taffy base.

No body fluids, no mystery, no intrigue. This whole production is pretty much a façade in front of a vast expanse of air. Perhaps that is what Lady Gaga is, too, in which case I have to say that FAME would be a fitting tribute after all. As far as celebrity perfumes go, this one can hold its own with the best of them, but the best of them are pretty bad...

12/08/2012

Digindirt
47 Reviews

Digindirt

Helpful Review 4

Don't believe the hype

I smelled this at the department store and my first impression was that it smelled like a grape snowball. The very young SA behind the counter said it smells like grape kool aid to her. I was not impressed at all. Nothing about this fragrance is worth the hype surrounding it. I can't think of anything to compare it to as I don't own many sugary fragrances. The bottle is very beautiful and was added to my collection briefly. Maybe there will be a Fame 2 that will "fix" the glitches so to speak.

Luckily I was able to exchange this for something that I really love.

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