Elite Woman Petali d'Incanto Eau de Parfum 30ml

The 30ml is the trial size, and Saphir Elite Woman Petali d'Incanto Eau de Parfum 30ml exists for exactly that: finding out whether a powdery rose is your register before you buy a bottle you have to live with.

The composition is a gentle one. Peach and bergamot start it, fruit and peel together, sweet but cut through so the top never goes syrupy. Rose follows as the main event, soft and a little fruity in this treatment rather than sharp, with peony next to it giving a cool, almost watery crispness and lily of the valley adding its green, dewy, soapy brightness. What people tend to remember, though, is the end. White musk and vanilla keep it warm and clean, and talc turns the finish properly dusty, the smell of a powder compact more than of a garden.

At this size it is also a practical object. A 30ml bottle travels in hand luggage, fits in a bag and gets used up while it is still at its best, which matters with soft fruit and flower compositions. Expect four to six hours and a quiet trail, which is the correct behaviour for a scent this close in character.

It suits women who want something unarguable for work, for daytime and for the sort of occasion where perfume should be noticed only at close range. If it earns its place, the 100ml is there.

Saphir, the house that makes it, has been in Spanish perfumery since 1940, beginning as a family warehouse in Zaragoza trading under the name Almacenes Corinto. The firm is entirely Spanish owned and manufactures everything carrying its name in Spain, at a Zaragoza plant that includes a research centre, with a catalogue built on keeping perfume affordable and a parallel business in licensed designer fragrance.