Note Pyramid
This Is Him! Gift Set
Men are harder to buy fragrance for than anyone admits, which is where Zadig and Voltaire This Is Him! Gift Set comes in.
The box holds the 100ml Eau de Toilette and a 50ml shower gel. The scent itself is sweet but not soft. Black pepper and grapefruit start it, the pepper dry and rasping, the grapefruit bitter rather than juicy, and between them they give the first ten minutes a snap that most sweet men's fragrances lack. Then incense arrives, smoky and dry and faintly church like, and it is the material that makes this one worth smelling rather than simply pleasant. Vanilla meets it halfway, warm and smooth, and the contrast between resin and plain sweetness is the whole idea. Sandalwood underneath keeps everything creamy and close to the shirt collar.
Aurélien Guichard and Nathalie Lorson built it, and they kept the structure tight. Five materials, clearly placed, no clutter, and a drydown that holds for a long evening without ever shouting. Projection settles after the first half hour, so it behaves itself at a table or in a taxi. Given as a present it suits a man in his twenties or thirties who wears fragrance for nights out and cold weather, and who would rather smell distinctive than safe. It is also a sensible choice for someone who owns one bottle and has never thought about what is in it, because the pepper and the incense are easy to point out and name. A boxed set solves the other problem too, the gift that looks like an afterthought, which a single bottle in a carrier bag always does.
Zadig and Voltaire is a French ready to wear house that opened in Paris in 1997. It does not make its own perfume: the fragrances are licensed, the first appearing in 2009, with the licence passing to Beaute Prestige International, a Shiseido subsidiary, in 2014.
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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