Million Gold for Her Gift Set

Pear is the first thing you notice in the Rabanne Million Gold for Her Gift Set, and it is a cleverer opening than the gold box suggests.

It is a juicy, slightly green fruit note, and it arrives with rose and lavender, which is an unusual pairing in a women's scent. The rose is soft and sweet rather than green, while the lavender brings a clean herbal coolness that most fruity florals would not risk. Together the three make a start that is sweet but not sugary.

The heart is white flowers. Jasmine is warm and honeyed, ylang ylang creamier and heavier with its clove like edge, and the two of them give the middle of the scent real body. Then it settles: musk for a soft, skin close warmth, vanilla for sweetness, and oakmoss for an earthy, faintly damp bitterness that keeps the whole thing from becoming a dessert.

On skin it projects moderately and holds a long drydown, which makes it a straightforward everyday scent rather than an occasion one. Alienor Massenet, Loc Dong, Nathalie Benareau and Suzy Le Helley composed it. It suits autumn and spring equally, it is quite safe at a desk, and it is aimed at women. As a present it has the advantage of being likeable rather than challenging, and nothing about it needs explaining when it is handed over boxed.

Rabanne began life in Paris, where the designer Paco Rabanne showed a first collection in 1966 and gave the house the name it used for decades. Perfume came later and from elsewhere: the Spanish group Puig created the division in 1968 and has owned the company since 1987. Million is the name the modern house is known by, on both the men's and the women's side.