Rose Wellbeing Fragrant Water Gift Set

A rose scent that does not take itself too seriously is harder to find than it should be, and the Roger & Gallet Rose Wellbeing Fragrant Water Gift Set is one of the better ones.

Inside are a 30ml perfumed water and a 100g soap. Mandarin orange opens it, sweet and soft rather than sharp, which immediately sets the tone. This is not a dark velvet rose. Rose itself is the centre of the scent, handled light and dewy, the flower as it smells in a garden in the morning rather than as it smells in an expensive bottle. White musk closes it, clean and slightly powdery, the material that makes laundry smell like laundry, and it keeps the rose close to the skin where it belongs. The fragrance dates from 2007. It is a short composition of three materials and there is no hidden turn in it, which is the correct approach for a product meant to be used freely rather than studied at the wrist.

This is a light formula by design, so it is for splashing after a bath or on a warm afternoon, and it will need topping up before dinner. It suits somebody who likes rose but finds most rose perfume too heavy or too serious, and it is an easy present for an older relative, or for anybody whose taste runs classic. The scent is gentle enough to be worn in a sickroom or an office, which is not true of many roses. Nothing about it is dramatic, and that restraint is exactly why it has lasted as long as it has.

Paris in 1862 is where the company starts, with two men related by marriage. In 1879 it brought out the first round cake of soap perfumed through its whole depth, not merely across the top of it, which tells you where its priorities have always lain.