Electrotouch Eau de Parfum

Sweet scents usually arrive without any edge to them, which is what makes Tous Electrotouch Eau de Parfum worth a look: the 2025 release puts praline and vanilla underneath fruit that is genuinely tart.

Grapefruit opens it with real bitterness, pithy and sharp, and blueberry sits next to it giving a dark, slightly jammy fruitiness that is unusual in the top of a fragrance. Pear softens the join between them, watery and crisp. It is a fruit opening with structure rather than a sugar rush.

The middle is brief and floral. Jasmine brings richness and a touch of that heady, almost animal quality the flower has, while orange blossom adds a creamier, more honeyed sweetness. They act as a bridge more than as a destination, and within half an hour the base is in charge.

That base is the reason to buy it or to avoid it. Praline is nutty and caramelised, black vanilla is dark, smoky and considerably less sugary than vanilla usually reads, and sandalwood runs underneath both, dry and velvety, keeping the sweetness from spreading. It smells rich and a little burnt at the edges. Eight materials, and in eau de parfum form the oil load tells: this lasts a long time, projects early and then settles warm against the skin. Cold weather and evenings are where it belongs, and anyone who finds sweet fragrances sickly should test it first, because this one is sweet but not soft.

Tous put its own beginnings at 1920, when Salvador Tous Blavi was training as a watchmaker, and the firm he and his wife Teresa Ponsa went on to build is known first for jewellery. Scent came with the broadening of the business from 2000.