Vendetta Donna

Hot, wet, early summer's evening... spitting rain, and the din of homeward bound rush hour traffic, both pedestrian & vehicular, fills the magic hour with an eager, unfettered joyfulness - anticipation & urgency - desire & yearning. And as I was jostled along a crowded pavement in an unfamiliar neighbourhood I happened upon that diamond in the rough so beloved of a perfume hunter: the mom & pop chemists shoppe. Dusty, cluttered, and ignored. A dream of forgotten memories still sat in random formation across glass countertops under equally ageing fluorescent lamplight - sentinel to the rich, romantic last days of parfum glory. There's a certain beauty in the decay of disappeared elegance. Once premium, now bargain, but quietly concealing class & quality little appreciated in 2019. VENDETTA beckoned to me from the farthest corner, half hidden behind a heap of faded cosmetics boxes in this untidied & unassuming homely dispensary. I can't say I recall VENDETTA from any particular research but something told me a blind buy was in order. (I nearly felt guilty. I don't think the price tag had been updated since the 90's either). Nor can I say I recall VENDETTA from 28 years ago, but when I'd gotten home and unwrapped its perfectly preserved packaging... well, it was 1992 all over again - in a very good way. Wow. Perfume really used to smell good, egh? That's a statement I need not make to you all but, gosh, smelling this has filled me with an optimism & joy I confess I don't get much from current market releases. What a pleasant trip down memory lane. Oh, has the world changed or have I changed? Then again, three decades will do that. There's so much going on in this one and yet it's QUITE smoothly orchestrated... all 35 revealed notes! There is fruit, yes. But it's the flowers of fruit - not fruit-tutti at all. I'd call this a Floriental Fruitgarden - because there is an earthiness - a certain sunkissed Mediterranean early evening when the dust of the day settles - sensation for me. And after a more distinct transition from head to heart in 10 minutes, heart to base has been a very mellifluous serenade which continues to play vibrantly a few hours in. For a 20+ year old bottle, I'm very pleased. That said, the passing years in solitude have diminished my VENDETTA's silage it would seem. No matter. A truly lush skin scent it always welcome and there's a richness here which points to proper longevity, though I can imagine what a presence there must have been back in the day! But how do I describe this golden-tawny beauty accurately? I'm getting the most lovely light yet dark, ethereal yet earthy, sweetish & savoury, floral & resinous, clear yet powdered, familiar yet exotic, polite & sexy, clean & sophisticated vibe, and yet... a smouldering sensuality... an Indian joss stick burning at a bohemian house party. What is this?? Perhaps it was named VENDETTA in the sense that it makes you think twice - it's not one to forget... it comes back for you. It's certainly making me inhale deeply over & over & over again. What a delight to stumble upon another neglected gem from the last days of unfettered opulence, glamour, & confident joie de vivre! To long time fans - I am with you now! And to the uninitiated - don't pass it up if it comes your way. Such a shame they don't mix 'em like this stunning honeyed elixir anymore. Pure ebullient, sybaritic, curvaceous, unapologetic early 90's delight. And WHAT a bottle! CHE BELLA! Life is good. ★★★★☆ Edit: It's a humid 27°C where I am at present, and nearly 22 hours after only a few spritz on my forearm (I'm about to bathe) VENDETTA is a lingering, semi-sweet oriental skin scent. Brava! and after two decades sat on a shelf -- i just marvel. They sure don't make them like they used to. +++ Top notes: orange blossom, wild daffodil, water lily, ylang-ylang, water hyacinth, bergamot, aldehydes, green notes, peach, and plum Middle notes: calendula, jonquil, lily, rose, jasmine, narcissus, lilac, carnation, heliotrope, honey, orchid, orris, tuberose, and marigold Base notes: myrrh, opoponax, musk, sandalwood, patchouli, amber, benzoin, cedar, Tonka bean, vanilla, and vetiver

Vendetta was an unexpected purchase - my mother bought it cheap off Ebay wasn't much of a fan, despite smelling a magazine strip for it years earlier and loving the advert as a child. I obviously wasn't mature enough to appreciate it, tried it and wasn't much of a fan and it sat on the shelf for a couple of years. Then one day I got it down and sprayed it again and I was in love. The most wonderful musky, sweet plum yellowy floral (marigold) with a beeswaxy burning candle/patchouli hippie incense note drizzled in dry sweet powdery honey. In a strange way it is a super sexy, powdery skin scent - dare I say 'exotic/erotic' version of Red Door to some extent and on me it was heavenly and in no way over-powering, men and women everywhere would comment on how good it smelled on me. It became my most loved fragrance of all time - but too bad as it was long gone when I tried to find a replacement. I held onto the bottle just to get a whiff but eventually gave in and threw it away as I realised I had to let go and find something new to love. I have been on a 16 year mission now to replace that damn perfume and I have probably bought 20-30 different perfumes which match the notes but nothing has come close except for Van Cleef which is very similar but not identical and I still will pine for this fragrance even though I have found another bottle but I will be hoarding this forever in fear of never getting another. I could wear this scent forever.

This is so lovely. I bought a full sized based on the notes and reviews here and I am glad I did. I usually get very interested in older fragrances that are on the chopping block because they are almost always very good or great. So many newer fragrances or reformulations are just a shadow of what a fragrance should be. I agree w/ the review below Vendetta is hyacinth dripped w/ sticky honey on a relaxing sunny day, a warm and comforting sweet floral. I also get carnation, narcissus and lots of benzoin. This smells so natural, and I would swear there were natural ingredients in this. It doesn't smell plastic or fake like so many newer designer perfumes on the market now. Rich, w/out being overpowering, sweet w/out being cloying, green w/out being sharp, powdery w/out being dusty, fruity w/out having the fruits rule the roost. It is a year round fragrance that is just gorgeous. The more I keep smelling this the more it smells like if Elizabeth Arden's Red Door and Elizabeth Taylor's Black Pearl got together and had a child. There are elements of both of those perfumes in this one, no wonder I love it so much. Edit: 5/13/22 I had to rotate this out of my collection. While a nice fragrance the bottle sprayer broke and could not be fixed. It was the strangest bottle. Such a shame I really liked this.

Vendetta is hands down lovely. Honey sweetened florals make this perfume a feminine delight to wear. Sillage is modest, longevity is good in the edt. I'm very fond of vintage Italian perfumes - less so of the recent products. V. reminds a bit of the older Krizia scents, of which many feature honey. Honey notes are my very favorites, so smooth and easy to wear. Unlike some sugary gourmands V. doesn't envelop the wearer in a candy cloud. V. is sweet but it's not a choking sugar sweetness. The floral and balsamic notes keep the fragrance from being too sweet. A look at the pyramid reveals the large number of notes, the scent is very skillfully blended so no single note overwhelms. Vendetta is an odd name for this cheerfully feminine fragrance, maybe an inside joke? In any case, I'm glad to have this in my collection, and I've ordered a back up. I love V., and V. loves me.

I bought a 7.5mL mini of this scent. First dab on skin: this is powerful! Vendetta is definitely a party girl. Fruity florals come right at you, anchored by vanilla, amber and earthy woody notes. It's not simply fruit and flowers, Vendetta has a lot of layers. There are some notes that remind me of Vintage Dior Poison; maybe it's the plum! The drydown is honey-vanilla sweet on me with a musky woody base. 4 hours in, the party girl winds down and becomes like a comforting white cashmere sweater. I REALLY like this perfume, but wouldn't say I -love- it exactly; it's a lovely scent but it doesn't stand out in my collection. I have a feeling I might grow to love it over time, though!

I remember someone in my family gave me half filled bottle with this when I was a teen in the early 90's ..It smelled like NOTHING else I have ever smelled .. So strong , beautiful , flowery & loud but in a wonderful way . I couldn't resisit it back then and sprayed a bit strongly on a hot day , while going to get a carton of milk :) ..Imagine a teen with all the baby fat wearing oversized T-shirt over a denim skirt in 30 c something degree , wearing this womanly fierce scent ..crazy?..Suuuuuure ,but I would never forget that neighbour of ours who said : " Your perfume is soooooooooooooooo lovely & strong " ...Wish I can get it again :'(

Eau de Toilette, 50ml splash bottle, glass stopper. There are zero off-notes, and rather than offering a top or mid, it drops on skin already a perfect kitchen sink parfum. Yes, to a 2022 nose, Vendetta is a rich parfum, miles away from modern EDTs. Fruity and floral but not too white floral, with nectars & amber. No spice, not green and the aldehyde is gone but not the indole which is sufficient to lift the perfume. Fresh honey! As if you've opened an Egyptian honeypot to discover 30 year old - no - 3000 year old! honey remarkably fresh, surrounded by deeper aromas. The base smells naturally of benzoin and patchouli.

Beauty. These perfumes truly embody delicate beauty. A smooth aldehydic–floral composition unfolds with sweet accents and a cocooning base that evokes associations with oriental, sweet resins. All-day longevity paired with moderate projection lends them an air of quiet luxury. The bottle is as captivating as the fragrance itself. I also see them as a perfect night-time scent, when you want to surround yourself with comfort, warmth, and understated luxury. A truly beautiful fragrance.

My favorite one for these special occasions. Very sultry, sexy but not too sweet. Definitely not a perfume for everyday use, kind of killer. Like a name suggest... Spare use recommended as they are very strong. For mature women, conscious of their sex appeal. Perfect fragrance for femme fatal :-) Really hard to find, lovely fan bottle shape.

A hyacint dripped with sticky honey on a relaxing sunny day. This is warm, comforting sweet floral. I love it!

Having never encountered Valentino Vendetta during its heyday, I am fortunate to have received a sample from a fellow perfumista. It is now discontinued and probably impossible to find. Based on this sample, I can report that the composition holds up over time--even decades! Launched in 1991, Vendetta exemplifies the intensity of perfumes usually associated with the 1980s: big, heady, loud, extremely floral and very complex. Yes, there are lots of flowers here, with a notable marigold (tagetes) presence along with the usual suspects, including quite a bit of narcissus. Intense and beautiful, if sparingly applied, Vendetta may become intense and annoying--even cloying, given the honey note--if overapplied, which is rather easy to do given its extreme density (could be partly due to evaporation, of course, given the age of any remaining samples of this perfume). Vendetta is a fine example of the sorts of perfumes which ushered in the age of abstraction and the "clean" anti-perfume fragrance movement. Now that consumers are being trained to believe that they should smell like sweet laundry, why should perfumers toil over creations of this complexity, when they can throw together a handful of aromachemicals and call it day? People who are coming to perfume only in the twenty-first century will likely find Vendetta and perfumes of its ilk to be overwhelming and disagreeable, but it's a lingering representative of a genre which before too long will disappear completely from the world of perfumery. For those not lucky enough to have the remains of a bottle of Vendetta on hand, there are a few available marigold perfumes still around, including Van Cleef & Arpels Van Cleef, Moschino Moschino (the original), and St. John St. John. They, too, are all complex and rich, but not quite as intense as Vendetta... Some reviewers have compared Vendetta to Chloe Narcisse, which I have not tried (I gather that it has been severely reformulated anyway). Others have cited Natori Natori, but I myself find very little overlap there.

thanks and kisses to Norgirl for the sample :) this is quite a unique fragrance. it has lots of honey - still it avoids to be toothachingly sweet and it is powdery, too. It is quite a homogenous scent otherwise - with the rest of the notes quite undistinguishable. I find it a well-done fragrance - so hard to find such attention in today's fragrances unfortunately. i was thninking - why such a beauty was called revenge - but now i have an idea - maybe because it is sweet and also because it seizes your heart ? :) sooner or later i will go for a full bottle for sure, it is masterpiece. for the visual types - you sit on a terrace having breakfast the early sun is just on the verge of burning your skin but it is still bearable - you have a bunch of flowers in front of you at the table and a jar of honey in front of you. As you new love is soon to appear you would get your mirror out of your bag and instantly powder up your nose. and then he appears and then all the environment melts together - you , the powder on your nose, the flowers - the jar of honey and the morning sun

This one is very similar to Guy Laroche ́s "Clandestine" which i really like!!! But if both would be surfaces, then "Clandestine" would be a bit uneven surface with bumps on the road (there is a bit sharp note in it), then Vendetta is more like a polished surface, like a highway. Moderatly sweet, very warm and comforting it is also very alluring. This one definitly becomes one of my new loves! In general this is very complex fragrance (just tale a look at the notes) but the whole composition is based around very prominent nacissus note mixed with honey and hyacint. Somehow i can smell also a dominanting marigold note. Patchouli is more present in the drydown. I also liek that the tuberose is here only as a shadow, not overpowering at all. And this is the BEST Valentino to my nose from all i have had or tested (and i think i smelled them all for now) by far!!! This review is based on EDT experience both Clandestine and Vendetta, so EDP or pure parfum concentration might be different.

This review is for the PARFUM - longevity is null I have to keep reapplying, but I don't really mind. Vendetta is sO misunderstood. Really, she is not about revenge, per say. Too sweet to be a femme Fatale. Strong presence but this is NOT a power Perfume, vulgar, or even assertive. She's terribly Suggestive but her strength comes from her self Assured nature. Not shy yet not flamboyant crisp without the slightest hint of green. Gives off this Air of glamour and strength to the point of seem- ing invincible. But at heart completely vulnerable. The only "revenge" to be had is success, and the only thing invincible is her determination. Peace

Just tried this. I never could think of a perfume that's mesmerizing. This is it. It's mysterious floral yet somehow heady, herbal and daring. I totally get the dominatrix image but to me it's more mysterious strange woman you see once and share a smile, a discussion and you admire her class and style... Reminds me of both Poeme and Paloma Picasso but somehow doesn't clash. Yellow floral but fruity yet earthy. I bought a mini which is not as pristine as my sample. The top notes were off but underneath it was still nice. I might look for one more bottle of this but hopefully I can find a newer/ better vintage.

at first i get plum, florals and something animalic underneath, though i am thinking that could be an indolic narcissus (?) this is definitely a perfume of its time- it smells 80s or 90s and lo and behold, it was released in 1991, right on the cusp of the decades. then it turns into a peachy floral. i notice the tuberose and a hint of rose. it's a warm, golden peachy floral overall. so pretty. i love these kind of perfumes and glad i got a little mini of this.

Such a pretty scent! It almost makes its name, 'Vendetta', a little heavy-handed because this fragrance is so unapologetically joyous. Plum & peach-rich tuberose, rich honey, fragrant rose and carnation, with a comfortingly soft aldehydic effect. I prefer to wear this in the spring, in anticipation of the warming weather.

Imagine yourself in 7 or 8 years old and you're living in the mid 80 ́s. So you go to school and the headmistress of the school is on your side exuding authority. Surely this woman is using "Vendetta". I think this could also be the scent of the "Queen of Hearts".

I thought with the notes that are listed that I would love this scent. It is just an "OK" from me. Fruity/floral....and just not quite green/chypre enough for my tastes. And there is a "combo" of some of the notes that just don't "wear well" on me...(?).

Ricordo che negli anni '80-'90 lo portava mia madre, in inverno (tipico profumo "da pelliccia") e quando si era in macchina insieme dovevo aprire i finestrini sfidando il gelo...la sua scia, così penetrante, era per me insopportabile, quasi nauseabonda! Troppo opulento per i miei gusti.

Nice,very elegant and classy smell.It is really for speciall ocasions and mature women...U feel very beautiful and special wearing it.By the way all the men that i asked if they like it or not they told me that they like it a LOT:)

Headache in a bottle..it isnt a bad scent but it is very very strong and even though it is an ok scent,it kills your senses.To strong to wear,it should have been a bit lighter.

This fragrance smells very classy and vintage in its style. lt's not for me, but I can appreciate its quality. Personally it smells too stuffy/musty for my own taste.

This one is just sooo ugly it should be illegal. Doesn't come close to modern Valentino's scents. Back in a day, when people had to wear perfume to mask body odour I see how wearing it would make sense. But nowadays you are better off taking a shower and wearing nothing.

Lmao “back in the day people had to use perfume to cover up body odor” Yeah, like 200 years ago. By the 80s and 90s most people ages 15- 40 showered every day, at least, here in the USA (europe though was very different). strong fragrances were preferred... for the cost/value for one thing. No need to keep spraying your perfume throughout the day. What a revelation. Spend big money for a perfume that lasts 24 hours. Instead of today, where the perfumes are even more expensive, and yet they last no more than 30 minutes. What a RIP OFF. Also, a majority of people back then smoked. Smoking can dull taste and smell. And strong perfumes cut through the smell of smoke. But the biggest reason perfumes were strong was simple: Back then, there was no big campaign to end strong scents. Most people enjoyed or didnt care much if they could smell a persons fragrance. That's what fragrances were for, after all. They were meant to be a beautiful thing to wear ... so that you smell good! It’s almost too simple to describe. In the mid 90s a campaign was started by granola types to end perfume wearing. Stating that people were getting ill and allergic. It became downright hostile. Thats what happened. It had nothing to do with body odor. It was simple: It was FUN and it gave one a sense of luxury to smell bombastically good.

This is lovely and exotic, though quite sweet to me, it starts aldehydic and greenish but quickly develops into a heavy sweet honeyed fruity floral, the honey note is strong throughout and produce a pungent effect together with marigold and tuberose. Its creamy, sweet and potent and lasts for a very long time. To me, the best phase is the dry down which produces a softer honey note with a hint of jasmine and peach. I must admit I find the beginning rather overbearing, that could be the benzoin and honey combo together. All in all this is a well developed scent for those who love gourmands with excellent Sillage and enormous staying power.

This perfume is SO hard to find, has it been discontinued? It is wonderful, I wore in the early 90's and was often asked by men AND women what lovely perfume I was wearing... it is not too sweet, but womanly, leaves an impression of flowers, fruit and honey mixed with cedar. A strong-spirited perfume that doesnt take no for an answer! It lasted ages on my skin. The bottle is beautiful, fan-shaped but what does this have to do with the name of the perfume? Revenge? Due to the bottle-shape I would have re-named this great perfume "Flamenco Nights" LOL. I imagine a lovely Spanish dancer dressed in black lace wearing this perfume ...

I found this on eBay, a full bottle from the 90s still sealed in its box. Wow, it is stunning! I am reminded of Poison, Red Door, Ysatis, Poème... this is a big, beautiful, strong feminine scent. The bottle is true art but extremely fragile as it tips over easily and the atomizer and cap are combined and seems easily breakable. If you manage to find this rare treasure be very careful with it!

Plummy tuberose, with honey roses. It's a fruitti floral blend with doses of plums, tuberose, honey, carnations, & peaches under aldehydes and narcissus mix. Quite sharp fruitti and i think it's with the chypre frame. Impressive blend of sweet fruitti floral.

Today I've become a proud owner of boxed vintage Vendetta purse spray 15 ml. I am not intending to use it, but just to feast my eyes and nose on it from time to time.

Love this! Smells like Chloe Narcisse meets D & G Red Cap. Dated in the best way. So happy to find a full new tester on the grey market for $45!

A tip for the die hard lovers of this one in the Netherlands. You can find the edt version online on parfumsuper reasonably priced.