Valentino Uomo Born in Roma
Valentino (2019)

The opening is powdery iris and sweet, synthetic woods. Very unisex. As it dries down, Uomo Born in Roma leans into the airy sweetness. No vanilla listed in the notes but it seems like something vanilla is barely there in the base.

Overall, it's fine, nothing to hate on. It does feel like a smoother, iris-infused Invictus.

Performance was good. It projected at a decent distance without taking over the room and longevity was good for me, in the 7-8 hour range on clothes.

Yet another generic grape-topped aquatic men's scent for the discounters. This intentionally smells like a thousand other masculine designer scents, with the small difference that the gross "woody amber" aquatic basenotes are so thin that they're less bothersome than most scents that follow this well worn formula. So I guess that's it. By cutting down on concentration and longevity, they sort of made it better by mercifully making it not last as long. Ouch - if that's the best compliment I can come up with, I can safely say that I don't recommend Born In Roma...

Valentino is the italian haute couture top brand, it is based in Roma (Piazza di Spagna the main sartorial head-quarter) and this is a fragrance created in order to celebrate the Ethernal City. The juice is not bad di per sé but is somewhat "common" and easy-going, just another simplistic piece of cedary/aromatic virile accord (woody, salty and cardamomish, a olfactory boredom overly "abused" and redundant today), not enough to enhance and represent the enormous charme of this enchanting worldwide capital (better represented by creations as Valentino Vendetta and Valentino Vendetta Pour Homme - classy, austere, superb, decadent). Valentino Uomo Born in Roma is a decently appointed nowadays mainstream woody/salty/aromatic fragrance based on a main synth salty/cedary/peppery vetiver-theme (with hints of smokiness and aromatic greens) and retracing the aromatic trends orienting the formulas of many previous or following (anyway contemporary) olfactory appointments as the following Boss Bottles Eau de parfum (equally salty but sweeter on spices and earthier), Bottega Verde Nero d'Ambra (equally salty/mineral/woody/aromatic), Azzaro Wanted and many other recent releases. The juice is focused on fresh woody notes surrounded by aromatic spices (ginger and cardamom), hints of acid fruit (green apple), sage and mineral saltiness (a well known recent olfactory twist - woods-cool spices-mineral saltiness). The aroma is virile, spicy-salty-woody, dynamic and elegant, quite urban and perfectly suitable for warmer climates. While longevity is more than good on my skin the projection is in the average.

What's to say about this one? Invictus clone to the last molecule and a "money grabber" for the naive.

This is very disappointing as the rest of the line is very good.

All that being said, me detesting Invictus right from the start didn't help writing kind words about Valentino Uomo Born in Roma.

(worn/tested 03.10.2020.; it was not in the directory at that time)

Here in Valentino Uomo Born in Roma (2019) lies a fragrance that both invokes the ire of the cognoscenti within the online fragrance community, and also stokes fires for the brand of Valentino itself in a general sense. A lot of prominent YouTube personalities, influencers that shamelessly self-promote masquerading as authentic reviewers of perfume (maybe they once were), became quick to jump on the hate bandwagon with this fragrance because it was nothing like the previous Olivier Polge-penned entries in Uomo line, and instead was the first trend-conscious mass-appeal fragrance Valentino had since V pour Homme (2006). Maybe Valentino didn't pony up and line their pockets or send out free bottles to review, but the point was this fragrance got trashed. Now I admit, I didn't exactly have high hopes either because whenever I see "mass appeal" appear next to any new masculine release, I automatically think "bug spray" thanks to the over-use of scratchy or sweet aromachemicals anymore, but I'm glad that this isn't the case here. Granted, Valentino Uomo Born in Roma is very much a sweet youth-oriented all-occasion fragrance just like Paco Rabanne Invictus (2013) or any number of releases from the Gucci Guilty pour Homme (2011) range, but it isn't the same as them. The key difference for me is the way Born in Roma infuses a bit of 2000's fruity musky ozonic tones that remind me greatly of things like Kenneth Cole New York Men (2002) or Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce Cologne (2006), meaning it feels like an update to a style once popular with millennial men when they were in their early 20's.

The opening of Valentino Uomo Born in Roma consists of the fruity musky opening tones, with bergamot and ozonic elements being labelled as "mineral notes" and "salt". These nostril-tinging notes will recall early 2000's Y2K dynamism and pop, with the citrus and fruit notes mixing down with violet leaf to add a pinch of masculine dry green. From here, the heart of mainly ginger, clary sage, and pink pepper adds proper body and aromatic weight to the aroma, with bits of that modern Invictus-like galaxolide musk adding a shower gel vibe. Vetiver is a minor part of the equation here as well, but the top notes inspired by the 2000's mix pleasantly with the ginger to keep Born in Roma from being another Invictus clone like so many seem to ignorantly proclaim. Maybe they weren't old enough to remember all the Calvin Klein, Kenneth Cole, Givenchy, and Carolina Herrera stuff circulating in the 2000's that smelled like this, so they have no point of reference, but no matter. The base is a thoroughly "modern" affair if by modern you mean patterned after what took hold in the 2010's, so expect ambroxan, norlimbanol, linalool, and the usual players compressed into a fresh ever-lasting olfactive white noise, which is the only real failing this scent has. All told, there is really nothing wrong with Valentino Uomo Born in Roma besides being put in a Valentino Uomo (2014) bottle emblazoned with a pink rendition of the logo, which probably set everyone off before ever smelling it. Wear time is about 8 hours and performance is average to above average, with best use being casual or nights out, since this does come across playful in tone.

Fresh, fruity, sweet, musky, and sharp are all notes that when combined together, often spell anathema for hardened "perfume journey" types who are all about deep vintages, stinky animalics, or long stories about hand-picked ingredients macerated in mason jars somewhere down in a hipster's basement, so I can understand Valentino Uomo Born in Roma not appealing to folks who tattoo Creed batch codes on their foreheads. But for everyone else, there are a lot worse things you could wear and I greatly appreciate a mass-appeal fragrance that tries to take the best of what made such fragrances great in the 2000's and mix them with what's popping in the 2010's. Not every time I listen to heavy metal it has to be some underground thrash outfit who recorded in a bunker and only made 400 cassette copies of their single album before dying in a car accident. Sometimes, I'll pop on some Ozzy and let his unintentionally droll vocal delivery over poppy metal tunes take me away. Same here with Valentino Uomo Born in Roma, composed by Antoine Maisondieu and Guillaume Flavigny, in the sense that it's unabashedly mass-appeal but has some real effort put into it. The original Valentino Uomo line is basically the second coming of Dior Homme (2005), and was even composed by Olivier Polge before Chanel kidnapped him to replace his father, so I don't think comparisons are fair at this point. However, if you're looking for something that prefers hot pink to boring blue, but delivers that same dumb reach daily driver appeal without smelling too conventional, give this underdog a spin. Thumbs up.