Vanille Soleil Wellbeing Fragrant Water Gift Set

Warm weather is where the Roger & Gallet Vanille Soleil Wellbeing Fragrant Water Gift Set belongs, and the composition has clearly been built with heat in mind.

Most vanilla fragrances become heavy in the sun. This one avoids that by keeping the vanilla dry and letting two flowers carry the weight instead. Jasmine does the lifting at the top, clean and white and a little green for the first minute or two before it softens into the vanilla. Ylang ylang does the opposite job below, creamy and full with a ripe, almost banana-like sweetness that marries into the vanilla and gives the finish its glow. The balance between the two flowers is what stops the vanilla flattening out in the heat.

Three materials in all, a short composition and an honest one, with the scent much the same at the end of its run as it was at the beginning. It is a 2025 release.

Because this is a fragrant water rather than a perfume, it is light on the skin and meant for generous use, which suits holidays, beaches and the sort of day when a stronger scent would be unbearable on anybody. Reapply it through the afternoon and think of it as a small pleasure rather than a statement of any kind. As a boxed set it is one of the easier presents in the range, since the scent is sweet without being youthful and warm without being overwhelming. It suits a wide range of ages, which is more than most sweet scents manage.

The name dates from 1862 and the business was built on soap and cologne in equal measure. It has kept the same Paris premises since 1932 and widened into bath and body products in the years after the Second World War.