Only Man Eau de Toilette Gift Set

For anyone buying a present for a man who still likes a traditional cologne, the Poseidon Only Man Eau de Toilette Gift Set is an unusually well built option. The fragrance runs to fourteen materials. Lemon, mandarin orange and orange make a bright, generous citrus opening, with lavender beneath them adding a clean herbal calm, so the first impression is of something freshly applied and slightly old school. That much at the top is more generous than most colognes manage, and it is why the opening holds rather than vanishing.

Inside are the 100ml Eau de Toilette, a 100ml shower gel and a 100ml aftershave. What follows is the interesting part. Aldehydes give the heart a fizzing, waxy, laundered lift of the kind you rarely meet at this price, and rosemary and thyme supply a dry herbal backbone around them. Cinnamon and nutmeg warm it, pink pepper sharpens it, and together they keep the middle lively for a good hour.

Amber, oakmoss, musk and vanilla close it out, the oakmoss contributing a dry, bitter earthiness that gives the drydown its character and the vanilla softening the whole thing at the end. It is a finish that smells of a barber's shop more than of a department store, which is very much the point.

A set makes sense here because the scent is the kind people wear daily rather than save, so it will get used. It suits a father or a grandfather as readily as it suits a younger man with classical taste. Eau de toilette strength means it can be applied without caution, and the scent is mild enough to wear in an office. Nothing about it needs explaining once the box is open, which is more than can be said for a good deal of fragrance given as a gift. Poseidon belongs to Instituto Espanol, a Spanish family company in its third generation which dates itself to 1903 and manufactures at Hinojos, in the Donana area of Huelva, producing colognes, shower gels, creams and deodorants.