Utur Al-Yaqut Batal Eau de Parfum 30ml

Thirty millilitres is the size that actually gets used up. Utur Al-Yaqut Batal Eau de Parfum 30ml fits a coat pocket or a washbag, it travels without argument, and at 24 euro it costs a good deal less than the 100ml bottle of the same scent, which makes it the sensible way to find out whether Batal is for you.

What is in it is unchanged. The first minutes are cool and bitter, with mint giving a real chill, grapefruit holding the bitterness and mandarin orange keeping the citrus rounded instead of sharp. After that it warms up through rose and cinnamon, the rose dense and slightly sweet, the cinnamon dry and hot behind it, and the pair of them work as a hinge between the cold opening and the finish. Leather and amber are that finish, dark and smooth and resinous, and they last well into the evening on fabric. The whole shape of it is a scent that starts in cold weather and ends up beside a fire.

Seven materials for a bottle this size and this price is fair going, and at eau de parfum strength there is no sense of a thin version made for travel. Keep it in a bag for topping up the cold opening, which fades fastest, or use it as your only bottle if you prefer rotating through several scents rather than finishing one. Mandarin orange is used in Batal and in nothing else across this range, so if that cold, slightly sweet opening is what you are after, this is the only place in the set to find it. The same scent is sold in a 100ml bottle once you are sure of it, and nothing about the liquid changes between the two sizes.

Saphir, which makes the Utur Al-Yaqut range, is a Spanish company dating to 1940, when it traded as a Zaragoza warehouse called Almacenes Corinto. It is Spanish owned and its own branded bottles are filled in Spain, at a Zaragoza plant that runs a research centre of its own.