Le Male Elixir Eau de Parfum Gift Set

Lavender is where the Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male Elixir Eau de Parfum Gift Set begins and, in a sense, where it stays, because the clean herbal line running through this scent is what makes it recognisable from a few feet away.

It is not soft, dried bouquet lavender. It is the cool, medicinal kind with a soapy edge, closer to a barber's shelf than to a flower bed, and it gives the fragrance an immediate crispness. Tonka bean is what warms it, a low, dusty sweetness that creeps in after a few minutes and never quite leaves. Benzoin is the last of the three materials, a resin with smooth balsamic warmth and a faint curl of smoke, and it is responsible for the thickness of the drydown.

Three materials is the entire list, and there is something to be said for that. Nothing is hidden and nothing competes, so the scent is easy to wear and easy for other people to recognise, which is half the reason a fragrance like this one ends up being somebody's signature.

Eau de parfum is the gentler of the two strengths this fragrance comes in. It lasts most of a day, projects for a couple of hours and then settles close, which makes it usable at work and not only after dark. Cooler weather suits it, though it does not fall apart in mild heat the way the denser version can. The set is the way to buy it as a present: no wrapping required, and it lands as a considered choice for a man who prefers warm and clean to sour and bracing, and who would not thank you for an experiment.

Gaultier is French, a fashion house before a perfume one, with womenswear shown in 1976, a Paris boutique in 1984 and a first scent in 1993. Puig has been the majority owner since 2011.