Perfume as a gift

Buying fragrance for somebody else means guessing at something they will wear on their own skin, every day, for a year. Here is how to make the guess a small one, what arrives in the box, and what happens if you get it wrong.

If you would rather they chose

A gift card carries an amount instead of a fragrance, from 300 to 1,500 DKK. The code arrives by email, with a printed card behind it in our own colours, so it can be handed over on paper rather than forwarded like a receipt. It is good for three years, it can be spent across several orders until it runs out, and it is not tied to a name or an address.

It is bought on its own, in an order of its own. That keeps it away from shipping and from the free samples that come with a bottle, and it means the card is the only thing in the parcel, which is usually the point.

If you do not know what they wear

Buy samples, not a bottle. The Discovery Box is 295 DKK and holds all five fragrances we currently make, 1.5 ml of each, which is enough to wear one properly for the best part of a week before deciding anything. It is a present in its own right, and the bottle is then chosen by the person who has to live with it.

If you already have it narrowed to one or two, single samples are 65 DKK, or 75 for Oud Absolu.

If you know exactly what they wear

Bottles come in 30 ml and 50 ml. Four of the five are 1,000 DKK in 30 ml and 1,400 DKK in 50 ml. Oud Absolu, the dark one, is 1,200 and 1,600. Every bottle ships with a 5 ml refillable travel atomizer, so some of it can be decanted and carried without the bottle leaving the house.

Bigger is not automatically the better present. Fifty millilitres of something that turns out to be wrong is a long apology on a shelf, and 30 ml of something right gets finished.

The message

At checkout there is a field called A note with the order. Whatever is written there reaches us with the order, and we put it in the box. Write it there rather than emailing it afterwards, because the parcel is usually packed before a separate email is read.

Timing

Orders are packed and sent within two to three working days. Nothing is dispatched at weekends or on public holidays. Shipping inside Denmark is 56.25 DKK and free above 1,050 DKK, and we ship across the EU. If the gift has a date attached to it, order with a week in hand rather than a weekend.

If it is the wrong one

There are fourteen days from the day it arrives to tell us the order is going back, and then fourteen days to send it. The conditions, and what a return costs, are set out in full in the return policy.

The honest version: a fragrance that does not suit somebody is not a fault, it is a fit, which is exactly the reason to start with the samples.

Ask us

We are a small house and there is no call centre to get past. Write to info@houseofziggimay.com, say who it is for and what they wear now, and you will get a real answer from somebody who knows all five by heart.

Nobody can smell a website. When in doubt, send the samples and let them choose.