Usually, I think I can review a perfume based on a sample, because you know if you like a perfume or not, how does it smells like, if it has lasting power or not if after you wear it for a couple of times. Well, in this case I had to mention that these are perfume samples in the title and I will also explain why.

So, I don’t know how they do it in other countries, but in Romania, Bottega Verde doesn’t give out samples for online orders. They give products as gift if you spend certain amounts of money. For example, I bought a bronzer – which I will write a review about because it’s great – and they gave me a soap as a gift with my purchase. Since I love perfumes and I was curious about what this brand has to offer in this department, I also ordered 4 perfume samples for which I paid. Granted, they’re only like 0,25 euros each, but my point is they’re not free. I mention this because what I receive were foil packets. That’s right, foil packets containing what I assume is about 1 ml of perfume. But how the heck am I supposed to apply it if I don’t have at least an applicator, if not a little sprayer? So I ended up pouring those things on my chest and then spreading the liquid with my hand.

That’s awful really, this is not how you make perfume samples. Oh, and on the packets it says that it’s supposed to be free samples and not for sale intended, but the only way to receive them was by ordering them. Ok, enough complaining, let’s talk a little about the perfumes.

Neroli EDT

The perfume contains various floral-fruity scents such as apple flower, cedar, musk, orange flowers, ivy leaves, lemon, neroli, bergamot and tangerines.

I love the scent of orange flower, but I think you need to know how to pair it or how much to use in a perfume. I have found that most affordable orange flower perfumes have that sickening sweet orange scent. I like it to be more fresh, just like the orange flower Nivea shower gels, for example. I don’t know about the neroli and the rest of the ingredients, but the orange is very pregnant in this perfume and I simply didn’t like it.

The price for a full size 30 ml bottle of Neroli perfume is 109 lei – about 20 something euros, but most times it’s sold at half of the price. Honestly, I wouldn’t pay even 10 euros for it.

Vialetto delle Delizie EDT

This perfume is part of the Giardini Toscani collection, which means that all the perfumes contain scents of fruits and flowers that you can see in the Tosca region of Italy. The name could be translated as The Path of Delights, or something along those lines. Don’t quote me on that. The perfume contains patchouli, pralines flavor, litchi, rose, peony and blackberries.

I usually like my chocolate-scented perfumes, but this also was too sweet for my liking. The pralines flavor and the fruity scents stand out in this composition.

The price for a full size 50 ml bottle of this perfume is 118 lei, which means almost 30 euros, but there’s always some kind of promotion and you can buy it cheaper.For example, now it’s 72 lei. Still, I wouldn’t buy it.

Fontana delle Muse EDT

Another perfume from the Giardini Toscani collection, the name of this perfume can be translated as The Muse’s Fountain. It’s also a mix of floral and fruity notes, including tangerines, peony, rose, vanilla, caramel, pineapple, raspberries and pears.

Out of all the 4 perfumes I testes, this was my second favorite. It’s also sweet, just like the rest of them, but it’s bearable. The mixture of floral notes, vanilla and caramel is quite interesting, I’ll give them that, but it doesn’t blow my mind away.

The price for a full size 50 ml bottle is the same as for the Vialetto delle Delizie perfume.

Vialle dei Boccioli EDT

Finally, this is the perfume I liked the most out of all 4 and which I would consider buying if I could get it for 10-15 euros. This is also part of the Giardini Toscani collection and its name means The Avenue of Buds, because it has notes of flowers that have buds. It contains musk, tuberose, white peach, vanilla pods and ginger.

Probably because it has less fruit notes and it doesn’t have something sweet like caramel or pralines flavor or something like that, this perfume is the most floral out of all and that’s why I like it. It’s not a delicate scent either, it’s something that takes you by surprise.

The price of a full size 50 ml bottle is the same as all Giardini Toscani perfumes.

So, to wrap things up, Most of these perfumes seemed interesting in theory, because of their cute names and all, but they’re too sweet for my taste. The only one I liked was the Vialle dei Boccioli. The Neroli one was a miss for me because the orange flower scent was not what I wanted to be.

I can’t tell if these perfumes are worth buying or not, because they’re on the affordable side on one hand, but I don’t know what lasting power they have on the other. For me, they seemed to disappear quite fast, but that could also be an issue due to the fact that I couldn’t test them properly because I only had those lame foil packets at my disposal. Anyways, I am intrigued about this Italian brand and if I’ll add one or more of their perfumes to my collection, or if I test out more of them, you will find everything on the blog.