LoveMe The Emerald Elixir Eau de Parfum 30ml

Dominique Ropion is a name that normally appears on bottles costing several times this, which makes Tous LoveMe The Emerald Elixir Eau de Parfum 30ml the most quietly interesting thing in the jeweller's range.

The fruit at the top is handled with restraint. Pear is watery and crisp, orange is sweet and round, and grapefruit cuts across both with a bitter pithiness that keeps the opening from turning into juice. It is a simple idea executed cleanly, and it is over within a quarter of an hour. What follows is the part worth paying for. Jasmine arrives rich and slightly heady, honeysuckle brings a thinner, nectar like sweetness that smells of a hedge in June, and violet sits underneath both adding a cool powderiness. The three of them together are more transparent than a floral heart usually is, and that lightness is a deliberate piece of construction rather than an accident.

The end is soft and warm. Patchouli supplies earth and a faint damp bitterness, vanilla rounds everything into something comfortable, and musk smooths the join so the last hours read as skin rather than scent. Nine materials, arranged in three clear stages, and the eau de parfum concentration holds them for a good part of a day without ever becoming loud. A 30ml bottle suits a scent like this, worn two sprays at a time on ordinary days rather than saved for occasions. It works in spring and autumn, in daylight, at work, and on anyone who likes a floral with no sugar in it.

Tous is a Spanish jeweller with its head office in Manresa, the town where the business first opened as a small workshop repairing watches. Perfume is a comparatively recent part of what it does.