Guilty Pour Femme Eau de Toilette

For warm afternoons and for anyone who finds the heavier Guilty bottles hard going, Gucci Guilty Pour Femme Eau de Toilette is the easiest member of the family to wear and the one most likely to be used up.

Mandarin orange and pink pepper start it, sweet and dry at once, and the pink pepper keeps the citrus from reading as juice. It is a short opening and a cheerful one, and it does not pretend to be anything other than pleasant.

The heart is a fruit and flower mix rather than a true floral. Lilac gives it the cool, powdery, slightly green quality that runs through the whole Guilty range. Peach and raspberry supply the fruit, the peach soft and fuzzy, the raspberry tart and a little sharp, and geranium cuts across them with a leafy, faintly rosy bitterness that saves the composition from sweetness.

Patchouli and amber close it. They are the same pairing used across the range, earthy and resinous, but at eau de toilette strength they sit much lighter, and the drydown stays gentle rather than turning dense the way it does in the stronger bottles. Five to six hours is realistic, with modest reach, and for once that is the appeal rather than a compromise: this is the Guilty you can wear to work in July without thinking twice about who is sitting next to you. It is aimed at women, it suits daytime and warm weather, and it is a reasonable first purchase for anyone curious about the range.

Gucci has been a Florence name since 1921, when Guccio Gucci set up selling luggage and bags, years before the equestrian accessories and the loafer. The label is owned by Kering, and its fragrance is made under licence.