Tommy Gift Set

Few fragrances name their materials by American state, and the Tommy Gift Set, from Tommy Hilfiger, does exactly that, which tells you what kind of scent is in the box.

Midwestern spearmint and Florida grapefruit make the first impression cold and sharp. Iowa lavender follows with a clean, laundered herbal quality, and Kentucky bluegrass gives the opening its signature: a cut grass green that is rare in men's perfumery and is the detail people recall years later. Through the middle, Cape Cod cranberry adds a tart red edge, a New England apple pie accord brings a soft baked sweetness without turning the scent into a dessert, and Texas yellow rose rounds the whole thing off. The base is deliberately pale. Mid Atlantic driftwood is dry and sun bleached, Wyoming cottonwood is sappy and light, Vermont red maple adds a thin sweetness, and Arizona cactus flower keeps a green thread to the end.

Eleven materials, all of them named for somewhere, and the result is a clean, wearable, unfussy fragrance that has stayed in production since the mid nineties for good reason. It is easy in an office and easier still at a weekend. Nothing in it was chased after a trend, which is why it still smells current three decades on. Given as a set it solves the problem of buying for a man who does not talk about fragrance. It is recognisable without being fashionable, and nobody has ever found it offensive at close range. It is also one of the easier presents to buy twice, since anyone who likes it tends to wear it until the bottle is empty.

The brand grew from one 1985 menswear collection into a mainstay of American sportswear, and PVH has owned it since 2010. Fragrance sits with the Estee Lauder Companies under licence, developed through Aramis, starting with the men's scent in 1995.