Le Parfum Eau de Parfum Gift Set

Anyone meeting this house for the first time should start with the Lolita Lempicka Le Parfum Eau de Parfum Gift Set, since the fragrance inside is the clearest statement of what this brand does.

What it does is sweetness with something uncomfortable underneath. Licorice is the material that supplies the discomfort, dark and medicinal and faintly bitter, and it runs through the middle of the composition alongside iris, which is cold and powdered, and tonka bean, which is warm and carries a faint bitterness of its own.

Above that, the opening is fruit treated oddly. Amarena cherry is the preserved, syrupy sort rather than anything picked, anise gives it a cool aromatic sharpness, and violet lays a dusty sweetness across the top. Below, the drydown turns comfortable at last: praline brings a nutty confection, vanilla warms everything, patchouli adds earth and depth, and musk keeps it close.

Ten materials, strong performance and a long life on skin, as you would expect at eau de parfum strength. It is not a quiet fragrance. It suits autumn and winter and it is firmly an evening fragrance. As a gift, a boxed set removes the awkwardness of choosing a size for somebody else, and this particular scent is a good test of whether a person likes sweetness with an edge to it or prefers their fragrance straightforward. If they have ever said that modern perfume smells like dessert, this will either convert them or confirm their worst suspicions.

The house is French, a ready to wear label that turned into a fragrance brand, and it trades on a whimsical, fairy tale visual identity. Its first scent arrived in 1997.