Choosing Perfume for Someone Else

Perfume is a hard gift. It goes on skin and stays there for hours, and the person who opens it has to like it on themselves, not only in the bottle. This essay is about choosing one of the eight fragrances in Chapter One for someone who is not you.

Start with what they already wear

The best clue is the perfume already on their dresser, or the one you notice when you stand close. You don't need its name. A few words will do: fresh, smoky, sweet, clean, warm.

Those words match the scent families the eight fragrances are sorted by.

• Musk and tea. 03 Space Between Us pairs soft, milky musk with powdery iris and orange blossom. 04 Tea Beneath Clouds pairs bright bergamot and oolong tea with fig and soft musk.
• Bright fruit and citrus. 01 Before The Crown is pineapple and citrus over ashen birch. 02 What Remains of Summer leads with ripe mango and bright pomelo, with a ginger edge over dry amber and vetiver. 06 Sun Through Linen is citrus-forward, with juicy orange, bright bergamot and ginger.
• Dark and warm. 05 Plum Beneath Snow is syrupy plum and spice over smoked oud and resin. 08 Beyond The Horizon is citrus dissolving into smoky black tea and amber woods.
• Sweet and golden. 07 The Last Golden Hour is amber and blonde tobacco, dried fruit and rum, settling into tonka and vanilla.

The scent guide sorts all eight the same way, family by family.

If you can't tell

Some people wear nothing, or something different every week. If the person you are buying for drinks tea the way other people drink coffee, 04 is the one; How Tea Got Into Perfume tells the story of the note.

Every Aether fragrance is unisex, so there is no men's or women's shelf to choose between. Unisex Is Not a Category explains why.

Which size

Each fragrance comes in 10ml, 30ml and 50ml. When you are guessing at someone's taste, the 10ml is the gentler gift: enough to wear for weeks, small enough that a near miss costs little. The 50ml is for when you already know. Blind Buying Is the Most Expensive Habit in Fragrance makes the longer case for starting small.

Whichever size you choose, it is an extrait at thirty percent concentration or more.

Ask the person who made it

Dave composes every Aether fragrance by hand in La Conner, Washington, and he answers every email himself. Tell him what the person wears now, or a little about them, and he will suggest one. Write to Dave.

He can also include a handwritten note with the bottle. Gifting explains how.

Timing

Orders ship within the US. Unopened fragrances can be returned within 30 days with a free prepaid return label. Refunds are processed within 10 business days after approval. Returns has the details.

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