Le Parfum Eau de Parfum Gift Set

White honey is the detail that makes Elie Saab Le Parfum Eau de Parfum Gift Set worth a second look, and it is not something you often find named in a fragrance of this kind.

The scent opens on african orange blossom, which is sweeter and rounder than the plain flower, with a honeyed warmth to it from the start. Jasmine is the middle, heady and full, the dominant flower and the reason the fragrance is remembered. The base is where the sweetness sits: white honey adds a soft, waxy warmth, patchouli brings earth and depth, rose a jammy roundness, and virginia cedar a dry pale wood that keeps everything in order. Francis Kurkdjian composed it, and it dates from 2011. As a boxed set it solves a problem. It is ready to hand over, it looks like more than one thing, and the fragrance inside is a recognised one rather than a gamble, which matters a great deal when you are buying for somebody whose shelf you have never had a chance to study. In wear it is a six or seven hour perfume at eau de parfum strength, projecting in the first hour and then staying close. It belongs to evenings and occasions, suits any season because the base is dry, and is aimed at women who prefer a full floral to something light. One spray on the wrist is a fair test; two on the neck is a committed evening.

Elie Saab was eighteen when he opened his couture house in Beirut in 1982, and the business grew on evening gowns, bridal wear and red carpets. The perfumes are made by licensees, and this one was the first the house released. A set built on it is about as safe a present as this part of the catalogue offers.