Cool Eau de Parfum Gift Set

Caramel is the material that makes Saphir Cool Eau de Parfum Gift Set an easier present than most, because almost everybody likes the smell of it. The fragrance inside starts sharp. Blackcurrant is dark and tart with a green bite, bergamot adds clean citrus bitterness, and jasmine is already there, rich and white, keeping the opening from being purely fruit. It is a brisk, bright start that does not last long.

A generous pairing: the Eau de Parfum at 200ml with a 30ml spray. The heart is the part people buy it for. Caramel brings a warm, burnt sweetness, iris is cool and powdery and slightly cold against it, and rose sits between the two, full and deep. That combination of something sweet, something powdery and something floral is the classic shape for a feminine fragrance, and here it is done plainly and well. Amber, vanilla and musk finish it. Amber gives depth and warmth, vanilla extends the sweetness from the heart, and musk holds everything close to the skin. Nine materials, arranged so that the fragrance gets steadily warmer as the day goes on, and so that the part a recipient remembers is the comfortable end of it rather than the sharp beginning.

As a gift this is a safe choice in the best sense: it is a recognisable style, it suits most tastes in feminine perfumery, and it is sweet without being childish. We hold no record of the other items in the box, so ask if that matters to the occasion. Autumn and winter suit it best, and so does the evening, though there is nothing about it that would be wrong at a lunch. Saphir, which has produced fragrance in Spain since 1940, sets out to make perfumery that people can actually afford, and sells its own lines alongside designer names it licenses.