Kids Boy Eau de Toilette Gift Set

Concentration matters more than usual with a children's scent, and Tous Kids Boy Eau de Toilette 100ml is pitched at the right strength: enough to smell of something, not enough to be a nuisance.

Seven materials, no more, and they are easy to pick apart. Clover is soft and green, neroli clean and bitter, mandarin orange sweet and bright, and those three make a short opening that fades within twenty minutes. None of those three is unusual on its own and together they do exactly what a children's opening should, which is to smell clean. Candy apple and grass follow. The candy apple is sweet and glazed rather than crisp, and the grass is green and freshly cut, and the two of them are what a child will actually smell for most of the wear. It is a cheerful pairing and a well judged one. Neither material is used at adult strength, which is the whole reason this works.

Licorice and musk round it off, sweet and dark from the licorice, soft and clean from the musk, and the whole thing fades out gently rather than drying down into anything heavier. Domitille Michalon Bertier and Juliette Karagueuzoglou are the perfumers. Keeping it out of reach between uses is probably wise, since a hundred millilitres disappears quickly in the wrong hands.

An eau de toilette washes out of clothes easily and does not sit on skin for hours, both of which matter when the wearer is small. Expect two or three hours before it needs another spray, which is plenty. Tous came out of a watch repair workshop in Manresa run by Salvador Tous Blavi and his wife Teresa Ponsa, dates itself to 1920, is known above all for jewellery and its bear motif, and has made perfume alongside bags and watches since 2000.