Flores Mediterráneas Flor de Naranjo Gift Set

Orange appears twice in Alvarez Gómez Flores Mediterráneas Flor de Naranjo Gift Set, once as fruit and once as flower, and the two are not the same thing at all. The fruit comes first. Orange and mandarin orange open it together, sweet and juicy, with lemon cutting across them for acidity, and the effect is bright and uncomplicated. The flower arrives next, and orange blossom is a very different proposition: white, clean, slightly soapy and faintly bitter beneath, with a green edge the fruit does not have. Thyme is set beside it, dry and herbal with a medicinal sharpness, and ginger adds a warm, dry heat that stops the flower becoming too polite. Musk is the only thing in the base, giving the composition a soft, skin like finish rather than a heavy one. Seven materials and a clear journey from juice to flower to warmth, which is more structure than a fragrance in this register usually bothers with.

Inside are the 150ml Eau de Toilette and a 30ml travel size of the same scent. As a present it is easy to place: somebody who likes citrus and white flowers and does not want anything dark lurking underneath them. It reads feminine and it is best in spring and summer, in daylight rather than after dark. Thyme is the material that keeps it from being merely pretty, and it is the reason the composition will suit somebody who normally avoids orange flower fragrances for being too sweet. Expect an hour or two of clear brightness and a soft musky finish after that.

Alvarez Gómez is a Madrid house owned by the same family for four generations. Its first premises, a shop at Calle Sevilla 2, opened in 1899, started by three young men who had left Leon for the capital and for work with scent. Its factory and its reach across Spain were both built from the 1990s onwards.