Rosas Eau de Toilette Gift Set

One material, named on the box, and nothing hidden: Aire de Sevilla Rosas Eau de Toilette Gift Set is rose and only rose, and that is the entire proposition.

You get the 100ml Eau de Toilette, a 100ml shower gel and a 100ml moisturizing cream. There is no point pretending otherwise, so it is worth describing properly instead. Rose in perfumery covers a wide range. At one end it is dark, jammy and almost winey, at the other cool, green and papery like the petals of a flower that has only just opened, and most compositions sit somewhere between the two. What a soliflore of this kind offers is the smell itself, unaccompanied, with nothing alongside to brighten it at the start or dry it out at the end.

That makes it a simple thing to wear and a simple thing to judge. You will know in one spray whether it suits you. It is an eau de toilette, so expect a light presence of a few hours rather than a day long trail, and expect to reapply if you want it in the evening as well as the morning. Daytime, mild weather and spring are where it makes most sense.

As a present it is the obvious choice for somebody who has worn rose all their life, since rose is the whole of it with nothing else to fall back on. The box contains whatever the brand has packed with it, so read the listing before you treat it as a main gift rather than as something to go alongside actual flowers, which is arguably its best use.

The range comes from Instituto Espanol, in Spanish perfumery and cosmetics since 1903 and still in the founding family's hands three generations later. It manufactures in Andalusia and sells colognes, shower gels, creams, deodorants and oils as well as fragrance.