Valentino Donna Born in Roma Green Stravaganza Valentino 2024

Is the tea in the room with us? I feel like I’m looking at one of those nineties Magic Eye pictures, scrying for a teapot, but all I see is sugary static. The white florals, yes, I can believe that. The vanilla, most certainly. And a flash of something greenish, possibly herbal. My reflexive thought was kiwi or maybe even sweet basil. It’s a prickly, tart accord that makes me crave sour gummy worms. (The green kind, duh). Green Stravaganza is a curious cocktail I kept coming back to, but unfortunately flatlined into that basic vanilloid “five samples muddled together in a Vogue magazine” scent within two hours. Longevity is gangbusters, however. A day later and the tester strip still has my car smelling of simple syrup. However, I’ve never successfully cracked a Magic Eye, so I might have to say “it’s me, not you.”

Mental Snapshot: Tea party at RuPaul’s. After much cajoling, you hazard a sip from your bejewelled goblet. It’s not bad but you begin to feel your eyes vibrate in their orbits. “RuPaul, this isn’t tea,” You treble. The other queens smile coquettishly, seemingly immune. “Of course not, honey,” RuPaul purrs, platinum lacefront undulating, Medusa-like. “It’s a Green Stravaganza…!”

tl;dr: campy gaslighter

This fragrance's main issue is being overpriced. I could look past that if it wasn't for the fact that the overpricing of this perfume is pure pink tax. The Valentino Donna fragrances cost about 25% more than the Uomo versions with the same volume content. I think it's important for us consumers to be more aware of this, because this is very common in perfumery to see this sort of price difference and they could be selling us these perfumes for less of an egregious amount, maybe even a reasonable price if they didn't insist on a 25% pink tax. It's outrageous that this is still acceptable and normalized.
With that said I do think it's a shame they do pink tax, because I like this scent. I bought a travel size on a discount (they are mysteriously able to sell at the women's travels at the same price as the men's travel size, hmm almost like they're not actually worth that 25% price increase). To me I kept getting wafts of it throughout the day and the tea aspects smells like iced black tea, which I really liked. It's not listed but I felt like I was getting a pear candy scent too, but that might be the bottle color influencing my impression. Really nice day scent, too bad Valentino is a brand that likes to ridiculously overprice specifically the products they market towards women. I would rather spend my money at a brand that's not trying to hide the pink tax by not having a 30ml for men and pricing the men's 50ml the same as the women's 30ml, and the men's 100ml the same as the women's 50ml. The women's scents are not more expensive to produce, they're just exploiting women consumers.

I don't like the original Born in Roma. The flankers are all better to me and don't smell that similar to the OG, but none of them has been good enough to buy so far. This one piqued my interest because I really like vanilla and tea combos.

The lapsang souchong note in the opening is so nice! I don't think I ever drank this kind of tea, so I can't say if it's realistic, but it definitely smells of tea and noticeably roasted. Something about it, in combination with the sweet vanilla, reminds me of toasted rice puffs for some reason. I like it a lot!
Underneath that is a floral freshness that makes the scent clean. This is definitely not as gourmand as, say, Kilian Princess. To my nose it's a soft, chill kind of scent.

I sprayed a tester on me in a duty free before a flight because I wanted to wear something calming and not too loud. I had already sampled this at home and thought this would be a good opportunity to find out if it would be something to add to my collection.
Unfortunately it isn't. After a couple hours of wearing, it just turns floral. Not specifically like jasmine, but more of a general clean floral scent. It's honestly a bit nondescript at this point, which is a shame because the opening is very distinct and lovely. I would have loved this perfume if it stayed like that or turned into something warmer. It's still nice the way it is, but not purchase-worthy.

I was attracted to this one because of the lapsang souchong tea note. I'm always on the hunt for a new tea perfume, may it be black, white or green (my favorite!). It was available at SDM a day when I wasn't wearing any perfumes which is why I decided to test it out on my skin.

If only the top notes had stuck throughout the duration of the perfume, I might have bought a bottle. The beginning is herbal, green-like, with a beautiful facet of calming smoky tea. Delicate, feminine, not in-your-face. Unfortunately, the top notes are fleeting (disappeared after about 10 minutes) and soon give way to the jasmine and vanilla. I have a weird relationship with jasmine. In certain perfumes it's a beautiful note of gentle white flower and in other fragrances it becomes this overwhelming indolic beast. As for vanilla, my skin tends to magnify sweet notes, sometimes to an uncomfortable scent level. My skin chemistry took the middle note and the bottom note and mashed them to form a "perfumey" scent. "Perfumey" scent to me is the generic and non-descript floral, sweet scent that wafts from perfume shops (the scent I used to makle out before getting into this hobby). The perfume becomes generic, inoffensive, safe and overall a bit boring. There's a facet of smokiness that seems to come back, sandwiched between the florals and the sweetness of the vanilla, but nothing extraordinary or unique.

I'll unfortunately be passing over it, but I'm sure people who desire a floral and sweet perfume with a hint of smokiness will be loving it. It's a crowd-pleaser for sure!

What a beautiful flanker. The tea note is blended beautifully and it’s not bitter or elderly at all. The opening is sweet and sparkly, the jasmine is perfectly balanced. The vanilla is powdery and not nearly as sticky sweet as the original. This is one of those designer fragrances that just smells pretty & inoffensive and perfect for any occasion. If you’re a vanilla girl like me but you want to smell fresh and clean as well, I can’t recommend this one more. The longevity is moderate until the juice macerates for a few weeks, I’ve had my bottle since last summer and the performance is perfect now.