CH Eau de Toilette Gift Set

A set is usually bought for an occasion, and the Carolina Herrera CH Eau de Toilette Gift Set suits the formal ones: birthdays for people who already have a signature scent, anniversaries, the present that has to look considered.

What is in it is a rose fragrance with a sweet, slightly burnt base, which is an older and more grown up idea than most of what sells now. Bergamot and grapefruit open it cleanly for a few minutes, the grapefruit doing most of the sharpening. Bulgarian rose and sambac jasmine then fill the middle, rich and a little heady, the jasmine giving the rose a waxy sweetness it would not have alone. Praline and patchouli finish it off, the praline toasted and sugary, the patchouli earthy and dark beneath, and that contrast between a sweet material and a dirty one is what keeps the fragrance interesting past the first hour.

Being an eau de toilette this is the lighter way to wear the composition, brighter at the start and less insistent on skin, which makes it easier to apply generously without regretting it. Four to six hours is the usual return, a little more than that on fabric and in hair. This is a women's fragrance, it works in the office and out of it, and it is at its best in cooler weather than we have had lately. The perfumers were Olivier Cresp and Rosendo Mateu, and the scent they built is a long established choice rather than a fashionable one, which is worth knowing when you are buying it for somebody else.

The house is a New York fashion business, started by Carolina Herrera, a designer born in Venezuela, around a collection in 1981. Perfume followed in 1988 under a licence held by Puig in Spain, which bought the fashion division in 1995.