Valentino
Valentino
84 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Hyacinth's green-tinged freshness and orange blossom's creamy sweetness emerge with immediate clarity, supported by water lily's cool, almost ozonic quality. The effect is bright and slightly crisp, almost sparkling, before the composition's floral density begins its inexorable rise.
The fragrance blossoms into its true character as ylang-ylang and jasmine surge to prominence, their interlocking sweetness elevated by narcissus's green-indolic quality and tagetes's unusual peppery-green spice. This is the fragrance's most compelling phase: a concentrated, heady floral with unexpected depth and a faint animalic undercurrent that prevents it from reading as conventionally pretty.
Heliotrope and musk emerge to soften the composition's edges, whilst patchouli's earthy restraint and myrrh's resinous warmth create a subtle amber undertone that lingers close to the skin. The projection collapses considerably, becoming almost a skin scent, though what remains is deeply sensual and vaguely powdery.
Vendetta Valentino arrives as a proposition rather than a declaration—a whispered invitation wrapped in hyacinth's peppery green breath and the creamy sweetness of orange blossom. What immediately distinguishes this 1991 creation is how IFF has constructed a floral arrangement that refuses to genuflect to convention. The top notes establish a crisp, almost aquatic foundation through water lily's cool minerality, but it's the heart where the fragrance reveals its true temperament: a dense, intoxicating mass of ylang-ylang and jasmine that intertwines with narcissus's indolic earthiness and the peculiar spice of tagetes—that marigold note that smells simultaneously green, peppery, and vaguely carnivalesque.
This is a fragrance for those who understand that florals need not be delicate or apologetic. The 88% spicy accord isn't about pepper or cinnamon; it's the animalic warmth generated when jasmine and ylang-ylang achieve critical density, amplified by rose's slight astringency and that unexpected tagetes note creating friction against the sweetness. The base—heliotrope, musk, myrrh, and patchouli—provides ballast rather than longevity, anchoring everything in a soft, amber-tinged earthiness that prevents the composition from becoming cloying.
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3.8/5 (418)