Gaultier Divine Couture Gift Set

Sweet fragrance makes good presents, and the Gaultier Divine Couture Gift Set is an unapologetic example of the type.

The box holds the 100ml Eau de Parfum, a 75ml body lotion and a 10ml spray. Raspberry carries the opening, bright and a little sour before the sugar catches up with it. Meringue is what the sugar arrives as, and it is a specific smell rather than a general sweetness: whipped, dry on the surface, soft in the centre, closer to a dessert trolley than to boiled sweets. Benzoin sits underneath and changes the register. It is a resin, warm and faintly smoky, with a thick sweetness that clings, and it gives the fruit and the sugar somewhere solid to rest.

That is the full list of materials. Short compositions like this one do not develop through stages; they announce themselves and then stay, which makes them easy to buy for somebody else because there is no hidden second half to dislike. The benzoin does change the balance as the hours pass, but it changes it towards warmth rather than away from the idea.

Bought as a set, it suits a birthday, a Christmas present or a first fragrance for someone who already knows they like sweet things. It is an evening scent and a cold weather one, and it is at its best on a night when a little excess is the point. The concentration means it will still be detectable on a coat the following day, so the recipient should go lightly, two sprays being nearer the mark than a handful.

The house was built by a French designer who put on his first womenswear show in 1976 and had a shop of his own in Paris by 1984. Perfume followed in 1993 and became a defining part of the business. Puig has held a majority stake since 2011 and has run the fragrances in house since 2016.