Very Valentino pour Homme (1999)
by Valentino

Smells nice, amber and sandalwood, yawn, dries to what perfumers claim is tobacco, OK, next.

23rd June, 2011.

Strange synthetic, very spicy, slightly fruity and herbal opening. After the spice dies down a little, you can tell it's going to turn into a tobacco fragrance. I for one, love tobacco fragrances, but this one just registers as "ok" for me. Once the tobacco kicks into full effect, it sits close to the skin. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing in Very Valentino's case. More projection might accentuate its negative parts.. unfortunately.. it is a bit synthetic. The tobacco has a rubbery/latex smell as well, it just ends up smelling medicinal. The combination of amber and sandalwood sweeten it up in the base, and leave you with a little more than just a weird take on tobacco.

The overall affect is this: tobacco dipped in cough syrup, and left to dry. Little projection, decent longevity, and just kind of weird. Doesn't smell horrible, but I'm not so sure I wanna smell this way.

27th March, 2011.

I'll register a neutral on this one.
Not particularly interesting at first. It starts off quite sweet, and presents a densely-packed chord whose notes are difficult to distinguish and not thrilling.
The dry-down improves, drops some of the sweetness and develops a sheer, slightly woody tone along with green-tea notes and what seems like an attractive smoky pipe tobacco note.
This is an unusual scent where the dry-down redeems the overall picture. Traces of coumarin-vanilla in the tobacco chord, but that is to be expected for this type of scent.
Competent, not excellent.

7th January, 2011.

This is a soporific rendition of spiced wood. Despite some exotically titled ingredients, Very Valentino lacks quality and sound execution.Immediately beyond the rather sour and asthmatic opening, things become tighter and drier, and perhaps even moderately enjoyable. Sadly, it never really evolves into something desirable – it merely descends into a vista of sandalwood, underscored with a thin impotent musk note. Amber sweetens the vestiges of the base, but overall, I find this sort of clumsy blend slightly depressing

9th September, 2010.

Intriguing concept hides this utterly boring juice which I really do find completely useless.

Very soft and weak fresh balsamic scent with shy tobacco note. Semi-sweet, has a boring and plain simple musky drydown. No lasting power on me and it doesn’t have notable sillage to it either. I can’t quite understand comparisons to a terrific By Man (D&G). They are light-years apart from each other.

I say you can skip this one without care and head straight into a another (and much more compelling) creation of Harry Fremont; Michael Kors for Men.

15th February, 2009.

i have to agree with many of the posters... this is a very neutral, inoffensive scent, but is no way memorable. i wear this to work quite often because of its gentle sweetness and bland character. the sillage is pretty decent, but there is no connection whatsoever between the scent pyramid and what i actually smell on my skin... all in all you won't get any complaints from this fragrance, but don't expect a lot of compliments either

9th January, 2009.