Le Parfum Eau de Parfum Gift Set

Boxed for giving, the Lolita Lempicka Le Parfum Eau de Parfum Gift Set carries a sweet, dark, slightly strange fragrance that people tend to feel strongly about in one direction or the other.

The opening is the odd part and the best part. Amarena cherry is a preserved sour cherry, syrupy and dark rather than fresh, and anise sits beside it with a cool, sweet, aromatic bite that cuts straight through the fruit. Violet adds a powdered sweetness over both. It is an unusual trio and it announces immediately that this is not a conventional fruit scent.

The middle keeps the strangeness going. Licorice deepens the anise effect, turning it darker and more medicinal, iris adds a cold, rooty powder, and tonka bean brings a warm, faintly bitter sweetness underneath. By this stage the fragrance has moved a long way from fruit.

The base is where it becomes comfortable. Praline is nutty and confected, vanilla is warm and sweet, patchouli brings earth and shadow so that the sweetness has a counterweight, and musk holds it to the skin. Ten materials, and the whole arc runs from sharp and strange to soft and warm.

As a present it suits somebody with their own taste rather than somebody who wants to smell like everyone else. It performs strongly at eau de parfum concentration and belongs to cold weather and to evenings. Nobody will mistake it for a department store floral. Lolita Lempicka began as a French ready to wear house and became a fragrance brand, and its whole identity is built on a whimsical, storybook look. The first perfume under the name appeared in 1997 and the range has grown considerably since.