Uomo Born in Roma Yellow Dream vs Coral Fantasy

Uomo Born in Roma has become an extremely popular line of fragrances for Valentino and is producing new flanker scents each year. Two of these flankers to the original are: Yellow Dream and Coral Fantasy.

But, which of these two actually smell better? Which lasts longer? Which is ultimately the better buy? Here is my full breakdown and comparison of each, after having tested each of them out.

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Tale of the Tape: Uomo Born in Roma Coral Fantasy vs. Yellow Dream

Coral Fantasy

Notes include: red apple, tobacco, patchouli, sage, geranium

Click here to try: Uomo Coral Fantasy

Read my review: Coral

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Yellow Dream

Notes include: gingerbread, lime, pineapple, cinnamon, vanilla, lavender, cedar, geranium

Click here to try: Born in Roma Yellow Dream

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Opening

Coral Fantasy opens with a sweet and succulent red apple note, supported by cardamom and other spices in more subtle roles.

Sage and some citrusy bergamot round out the opening profile. That bergamot enhances the red apple beautifully. Very bright and fairly sharp.

In the later stages, freshness emerges through geranium, clean-smelling lavender, and tobacco.

Meanwhile, Yellow Dream opens up with some light freshness and juiciness from its fruity notes. The pineapple is slightly stronger than then mandarin orange, but both are somewhat subdued by the warmer and spicier notes.

There’s already a heaviness in the base. I get lots of the gingerbread accord, obviously we’re going to have plenty of ginger and cinnamon spice in this mix.

Though, that vanilla note is already fairly present from the jump.

Which is better?

I like both in the opening act, but Coral Fantasy has a more unique and ultimately somewhat better dynamic at the start of the wear than does Yellow Dream.

Edge: Coral

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Projection

Coral Fantasy is a more moderate fragrance overall. It doesn’t achieve the same reach as Intense or even the EDT, though it does start reasonably strong.

It’s also not as heavy of a scent as Intense or others in the line, like Rockstud Noir.

Yellow Dream is also pretty moderate with how it projects. It is the heavier and thicker of the two fragrances and I also think that it has a bit better projection than Coral Fantasy.

Not a massive difference, but I’d give the edge to Born in Roma Yellow Dream.

Edge: Yellow Dream

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Longevity

Coral Fantasy tends to persist in that 6-7 hour territory. Perhaps slightly longer, but I still consider it a step down compared to Roma EDT.

With Yellow Dream, I get more than 7 hours and maybe it hits 8 or 8.5 hours in total sometimes. It’s not an absolute beast with its performance, but it does have a slight advantage again here over Coral Fantasy.

Neither is great, Yellow Dream is just better.

Edge: Yellow Dream

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Versatility

Seasonally, both of these work best from autumn through spring. Neither is built for hotter weather, but can do just fine when things are temperate.

Coral Fantasy has more of an extension into warmer weather than does the heavier Yellow Dream.

They’re both quite versatile in their use cases. Coral Fantasy and Yellow Dream can be worn by any age group, though these aren’t very formal fragrances. Both will have more use cases among the younger age cohort.

One is cozy and spicy sweet, while the other is more of a sweet, tobacco, and woodsy aroma.

Not much separation here.

Edge: Push

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Overall Scent

So, overall which of these two Valentino fragrances is the better one between them? Which do I actually prefer wearing?

With Born in Roma Coral Fantasy, I was excited to try it out upon its release. Ultimately, it wasn’t as good as I had hoped for.

The apple note is good and is the highlight of the fragrance, but I was expecting more. It was above average with decent performance.

Though, it’s saving grace in this competition could’ve been that Yellow Dream isn’t particularly outstanding either.

Yet, having worn both of these fragrances quite a lot, I still think that I prefer Yellow Dream more so than Coral.

I like the opening act of Coral Fantasy, but then it becomes pretty unremarkable. Yellow Dream is pretty good throughout at least, with moments where it is much better. To me, it’s just a steadier level of enjoyment.

There’s not a huge gap in my opinion of all the releases from the Born in Roma line. These two are almost neck and neck, but I have actually wanted to wear Yellow Dream here recently, and that was not the case when I had a bunch of samples of Coral Fantasy.

I basically forgot about it after I did my testing and review of that cologne.

Winner: Yellow Dream