Agaressence Eau de Parfum Gift Set

Brecourt Agaressence Eau de Parfum Gift Set is the heaviest thing the house makes and the one most likely to be bought as a present for somebody who already knows their perfume.

Oud is in the opening and again in the base, which is unusual and tells you the scent is built around it rather than merely finished with it. At the top it arrives with plum and blackcurrant, both dark and winey, saffron adding a leathery bitterness and rhododendron a cool green strangeness that very few compositions use at all. It is a dense start and it makes no concession to anyone who wants an easy first impression.

The heart is a full flower arrangement. Rose and tuberose carry the weight, ylang ylang adds a creamy, faintly fruity richness, and all three are set against the resin below rather than floating above it, so the florals read as part of the structure instead of as decoration on top of it.

That base is where the work is. Oud returns, dry and animal, amyris and gurjun balsam add a smoky sweetness, cypriol brings earth and smoke of its own, spikenard a bitter root quality and civet the faintly feral warmth that makes the whole thing smell alive rather than assembled. Emilie Bouge composed it.

As a present it has the advantage of smelling considerably more expensive than most things bought at the same moment, and of being memorable rather than merely pleasant. It is cold weather wear and evening wear, it reads unisex, and it wants a light hand rather than a confident one, since the oud and the civet will travel on their own. The house is Brecourt, a small French niche perfumery, and this is the work of its perfumer Emilie Bouge, who grew up near Grasse.