Valeria

Will you shoot me if I say I like this more than Valaya? That one has never been a favourite of mine, but I fell in love with this during a recent pharmacy trip, without initially knowing it was a Valaya dupe. Valaya I've always found a bit underwhelming. Like it almost works, but it's not daring or interesting in any way, stays a bit too meek for its own good, and hence ends up as forgettable. This one is a beautiful orange flower and citrus scent, with gentle and transparent but detectable vanilla, and slight smokiness from akigalawood (I normally hate oud-y notes, and woody notes in general, but this one is very well executed, and only lends some smokiness, not any heaviness). Those last two mentioned make it a very interesting and distinct, though it's still very fresh and elegant. It gave me nothing but joy in the midst of a heatwave. Also, it doesn't have the expensive soap quality of Valaya has at any point. I do like the peach in Valaya though, which doesn't really exist in this. I wish they kept that, but it's still gorgeous. Might try to layer with a linear peach scent. My husband was immediately like "OOOOH YOU SMELL GOOODDDDDD" upon walking in. Longevity is really good for a freshie. I can still smell it on me the next day. On clothes and hair, it lasts days. Sillage is not bad either, a few people have commented on my perfume. All in all a VERY good 9 quid spent. Gave me more joy than some of my 200+ quid bottles! This is my second Verset perfume, after Mariona, an Angels' Share dupe which I also enjoy immensely, sometimes more so than the original. I'm not really big on dupes but these I find really good. Our local pharmacy carries Verset, I gravitate towards them while I'm waiting for my prescription, and before I know it... I have another one.

I love Valaya but I find the price ridiculous for that scent profile. It is nice, but a basic clean flowery musk. Also, the musk in it is often too much for me. This version is Valaya with less musk and more flowers. The smell is very similar but if you love the original Valaya it won't be close enough for you. It also lasts less than Valaya, 5-6 hours while the OG lasts for days. Overall I prefer this over Valaya, because it is more wearable and the price is fab.

Smells like Valaya, and I don't like anything that smells like Valaya, but perfume is really well made. It's long lasting and very much like OG. I've had a bottle, but just can't get along with this scent profile... 🤷

Initially well blended with mandarin and slightly resinous woody notes. Refreshing at first, the scent becomes sweeter, very peach and orange blossom/neroli prominent in about 30 min. On the paper this sweetness lasts longer, while on skin it's woodier in the drydown. Still, the heavy floral sweetness was much stronger than I would have liked or had anticipated. This one has much better longevity (over 6h) and projection that the other one I've tested, Khaddy. So, I went and checked the official website and there the listed notes are: Top notes: Tangerine, Peach, Bergamot Heart notes: Orange blossom, White Flowers, Vetiver Base notes: Akigalawood, Sandalwood, Ambroxan At this point one can only conclude that the – very often – inaccurate lists of notes on Fragrantica are done on purpose, especially when it comes to more recent releases (of non-incentivized dupes?) and brands that have very well curated websites with all the information available. Not to mention this makes filtering by notes useless to some extent. So, always do your own due diligence. True, you can never really predict, just based on the notes, what your experience of the scent will be like (not to mention notes are often just marketing, sometimes pure fantasy and sometimes intentionally misleading by the brand). Luckily, this brand offers smaller (15 ml size) bottles as well, for around 8-9 €, which makes testing fragrances affordable, if not entirely risk-free.