Beautiful Eau de Parfum

Estée Lauder Beautiful Eau de Parfum has been bought as a wedding fragrance for four decades, and the composition explains why: it is a bouquet, in the literal sense, and very little else.

Sophia Grojsman built it in 1985 out of flowers piled on flowers. Rose is at the centre, full and slightly jammy, with tuberose beside it bringing a creamy, heady weight and lily adding a cool white cleanliness. Mandarin orange gives the opening a round sweetness and marigold a bitter green edge that is easy to miss but does a lot of work, stopping the whole arrangement from turning sugary.

The heart carries on in the same direction. Orange blossom and jasmine deepen the honeyed quality, ylang ylang pushes it towards something creamy and almost banana sweet, and lily of the valley keeps a dewy green freshness running through the middle of it. There is no gap anywhere in the structure, which is deliberate and is exactly what a certain kind of occasion wants.

The base is restrained by comparison. Sandalwood gives a soft creamy wood, vetiver a dry earthy bitterness and amber a low resinous warmth, and those three hold the flowers down rather than adding anything of their own. At eau de parfum strength it is long lasting and genuinely projecting, so one spray is a decision and three is a statement. It belongs to daytime, to spring and autumn, and to weddings, christenings and family occasions, which is where most bottles of it get used. It is a women's fragrance without qualification.

Estée Lauder founded the firm with her husband Joseph in New York in 1946, selling creams through Manhattan beauty salons before entering perfumery in 1953. Youth-Dew and this fragrance are the two the house is best known for among its own, alongside a stable of acquired names that includes Clinique, MAC and La Mer.