Note Pyramid
L'Homme Ideal Gift Set
The base is the best part of the Guerlain L'Homme Ideal Gift Set, and it is what stops a fragrance built on a nut from ever turning into a pudding.
The box holds the 100ml Eau de Toilette and a 75ml shower gel. Leather does most of that work, smooth and dark rather than raw, with cedarwood beside it giving a dry pencil like sharpness and vetiver underneath adding a rooty, slightly earthy weight. Above it, almond is the material the fragrance is known for, used cool and faintly bitter and deliberately unsweetened, with tonka bean softening it with something powdery and gently warm. The opening is the brightest stretch: bitter orange sharp and peel like, orange blossom clean and white, rosemary dry and herbal with a cool edge that clears the whole thing out.
Eight materials, and the appeal is in the balance. The almond makes it memorable, the base makes it wearable, and between them they produce a masculine fragrance that does not sound like every other one in its price bracket. Eau de parfum concentration gives it the staying power to last a full day, and it is best applied sparingly, since the leather and vetiver grow rather than fade as the hours pass.
Boxed as a set, it answers the usual problem with giving men fragrance, which is that most of them will not try anything new unless it is handed to them. This is a good thing to hand over, and it needs no further presentation. Thierry Wasser composed it.
Guerlain is Parisian, founded in 1828 and owned today by LVMH. The founder's Eau de Cologne Imperiale, created in 1853 for the marriage of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie, won the house its appointment as official perfumer, and Shalimar, from a later generation in 1925, remains the creation it is best known for.
Please note: images are a guide only. Packaging and bottle design may occasionally differ from those shown due to manufacturer updates or promotions.
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