Star Gift Set

Aire de Sevilla Star Gift Set is the present to buy for a teenager, and that is not meant as a backhanded compliment. Knowing exactly who something is for makes the choosing of a gift considerably easier, and this one announces its audience from the colour of the box onwards.

The box holds a 150ml Eau de Toilette, a 150ml shower gel and a 150ml moisturizing cream. The scent is sweet from end to end. Raspberry opens it, tart and jammy, with bergamot supplying a brief clean bitterness before the sugar arrives properly. Rose comes next, full and jam like rather than cool and papery, with caramel alongside it smelling of burnt sugar and butter straight out of the pan, and amber giving the whole middle a warm resinous backing.

The finish keeps faith with the rest. Vanilla is smooth and creamy, jasmine adds a floral lift so it does not read purely as dessert, and musk pulls it all down onto the skin. Eight materials, nearly all of them pointed in the same direction, which is exactly why the scent is so easy to recognise from across a room and so easy to like at a certain age.

Cold weather and evenings show it best, and the eau de toilette strength stops it becoming too much in a warm room. As a gift it works for a birthday or for Christmas, and it suits somebody who will wear it every day rather than save it for an occasion that never comes. The box contains what the brand has packed, so look at the listing before assuming it covers a main present on its own. Instituto Espanol, which makes the range, has been in Spanish perfumery and cosmetics since 1903, is still family run in its third generation, and produces colognes, shower gels, creams, deodorants and oils as well as fragrance, all of it at Hinojos in Huelva province.