Hombre

011 - Hombre is Rosa Salas' interpretation of Valentino Uomo, the 2014 Olivier Polge composition known for its unusual bergamot-myrtle opening moving into a hazelnut, chocolate and roasted coffee heart over leather and cedar. Rosa Salas keeps the same shape: bergamot and black pepper open with a lively citrus-spice freshness, myrtle and coffee take over the heart in a close echo of the original's signature gourmand-aromatic pairing, and musk, leather and cedar close out the base with the same confident, slightly sweet leather the genuine Valentino is praised for. It's a fair likeness - Valentino Uomo's reviewers consistently single out the bergamot-myrtle-coffee combination as the fragrance's defining trait, and Hombre reproduces exactly that trio rather than diluting it into a generic woody-spicy blend. Performance runs shorter than the roughly seven hours reported for the genuine EDT, settling instead into a soft coffee-leather skin scent after a few hours. Solid year-round wear for anyone who likes the coffee-leather masculine genre without wanting to commit designer money to the original bottle.