Born in Roma Extradose Uomo
Valentino (2025)

Born in Roma Extradose Uomo by Valentino (2025) should really be called "Extrayuck" as all this really does is take the original Valentino Uomo Born in Roma (2019) and Valentino Uomo Born In Roma Intense (2023) and combine them, dialing back the latter's vanilla to add some synth woods garbage in its place. Not much else to say here, as any exposition about the wheretos or whyfores would be found on the review of the original Born in Roma. In short, this is a massive deviation from the original Uomo line that has become the used and abused cash cow for the house.

So this comes out of the sprayer cloying from the start, far more than the others from the line I've noticed. We have that familiar retro 00's meets modern bubblegum that I actually kinda liked with the original, but louder as the name suggests, with added ginger and pepper. The so-called "Wild Lavender" in the heart is just more medicinal lavandin borrowed from something like Dior Sauvage (2015) or Prada Luna Rossa Carbon (2017), so nothin' doing there. After that, it's the woody scratch in the base. When this does settle down, Extradose feels like any number of also-rans in the market.

Performance as you might imagine is nightmarishly strong, and if you're full-on compliment bro then this is your sauce; but I won't want to share a hallway or elevator with you, and I can't imagine anyone else will either, including the girl you're trying to mack on in vain. Valentino knows their audience with this one, so I'll let the looksmaxxing tweens of TikTok fret over their cultivated dysphoria while draped in this toxic sludge, and I'll just keep on trucking with something that you can choose to ignore, or get closer to smell more, as fragrance should be. Thumbs down