Holiday Beauty Gift Guide: Fragrance Sets for Her

For the next installment of my gift guide, I'll cover an easy, yet tricky gift to give: fragrance! I just recently gotten more interested in perfume. I understand those of you who feel daunted by the many choices and brands out there. I, for one, like to buy small bottles of a different perfume every few month, since I get bored easily. Giving you friends a perfume gift set can be a fun way for them to try something new or something wouldn't buy for themselves. Discount stores like Loehmann's, Nordstrom Rack or Marshall's are good place to find cheap perfume sets, especially for classic and popular fragrances, like Burberry Brit or Clinique's Happy. For newer or less well-known scents, head to department stores or Sephora. Gift sets are fun also because they can include lotion and perfume solids. These can be used to layer the scent which increases staying power. Here are a few sets I found browsing online:

For your fabulously floral friend: Go for the best, since she'll appreciate it. Get Gucci's Eau de Parfume II Gift Set ($72) which includes a 1.7oz bottle and a mini purse sized .17 oz bottle, and body lotion in this girly yet elegant scent. It has notes of mandarin, blackcurrant, violet, and blackberry, smoothed with jasmine, heliotrope, and cedarwood. It is certainly full of florals for extra fabulousness.

For your diva friend: The ultimate in ego, calling your scent The One ($68). Dolce and Gabbana's new scent has a strong personality and with inner sweetness. It starts with sun-touched citrus and fruity notes of lychee and peach. The middle is strongly feminine floral of lily and jasmine. The base is a hint of plum with vanilla and ambery-musk. Unique and definitive, just like her. The set includes a 1.6oz perfume spray, body lotion, and .2oz fragrance pen in a signature box.

For your trend-setter (or follower) friend: Marc Jacobs's Daisy ($60) is all anyone can talk about these days. I think its funny mostly because daisies don't even smell! But this certainly does, of violet mostly with hints of strawberry, gardenia and jasmine, and people love it. The set includes 1.7oz eau de toilette and body lotion.

For your anglophiliac friend: I have a ton of friends who love their Burberry fragrances, especially Brit. The Burberry Coffret ($32) is a nice way for your british-obsessed friend to sample five of their signature perfumes in small quantities and decide which is worth their investment. Set includes a 0.15 oz Burberry London Eau de Parfum, 0.15 oz Burberry Classic Eau de Parfum, 0.15 oz Touch For Women Eau de Parfum, 0.15 oz Brit Eau de Toilette, 0.15 oz Weekend For Women Eau de Parfum, in a signature gift box.

For your complicated friend: Sephora has the perfect solution for your fragrance gift giving worries, the Scent Sampler Gift Certificate ($50). The set includes ten samples of popular scents and a certificate for $50 for them to go back to Sephora and buy which ever scent they want! How smart. The samples are: Aquolina Pink Sugar, Badgley Mischka, Guerlain My Insolence, Hard Candy Fragrance, Hilary Duff With Love...Hilary Duff, Juicy Couture, Philosophy Inner Grace, Stella McCartney Stella, Vera Wang Princess, and Givenchy Very Irresistable Givenchy Sensual Eau de Parfum. It also includes a mini refillable atomizer. Only negative: they have to buy one of the 10. If you don't like this, then just get a regular gift certificate...but then they don't get any samples.

Gift Lovely!