Rasasi Hawas London Eau de Parfum 3.38 oz

Pear and saffron, which is a stranger pairing than it sounds. Hawas London opens with pink pepper prickling over a juicy pear note, and saffron threaded straight through it - dry, slightly leathery, a touch bitter - so the fruit never gets a chance to read as a fruit-market freshie. The heart softens into rose and white florals, more of a haze than a bouquet, and the whole thing lands on blonde woods, vanilla, amber and musk. That base is where it earns its name: warm, faintly powdery, and considerably more polished than the aquatic and tropical Hawas flankers that came before it. Rasasi built this one around a city of grey stone and museum light rather than a beach, and the fragrance follows.

Top: Pink pepper, pear, saffron · Heart: Rose, white florals · Base: Blonde woods, vanilla, amber, musk

Saffron-and-amber structures are usually cold-weather territory, and in Miami that matters. Indoors and after sundown this is superb - eight to ten hours, a warm cloud at arm-length for the first three, then close to the skin. At noon in July it is a different fragrance: the humidity drags the vanilla and amber forward, the saffron sharpens, and it can feel like wearing a winter coat. The workaround most people land on is seasonal and time-of-day. Save it for evenings and for the December-to-March stretch when it is genuinely at its best, and cut down to two sprays if you wear it in summer.

Sold as a men fragrance but comfortably unisex - the rose and pear pull one way, the saffron and woods the other. Dinners, evenings out, cool-weather office wear, anywhere you want to smell expensive without smelling loud.

The 5ml and 10ml decants are the easy way to find out whether saffron works on your skin, and we fill both. Or come test it in Miami Gardens, where the tester will tell you in a minute.