Unique Custom Fragrance Gifts for Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day, rather than handing out celebrity fragrance sets from the mall, why not show your loved ones exactly how special they are to you by giving them unique custom fragrance gifts? There are several websites online where you can order high quality custom fragrances, and several of them are running specials right now for Valentine's Day.

Ayala Moriel Custom Fragrance

Ayala Moriel Parfums is an upscale Vancouver-based perfume house that uses only the finest natural ingredients. Ayala Sender, the nose behind these fragrances, has created a line of ready-to-wear perfumes based on memories of her Mediterranean childhood, but she also offers a custom perfume for people who demand an absolutely unique scent. Ms. Sender states, "When I make a perfume for a person, I help them to translate who they are into a beautiful perfume that is as complex and multifaceted as they are."

The process takes 6-8 weeks and starts with a fragrance questionnaire that asks questions about your taste and lifestyle in order to narrow down the suitable notes for your customized scent. After that a personal interview with Ms. Sender leads to the creation of three potential scent samples; the client chooses his or her favorite, any necessary changes are made, and the final custom fragrance is sent in a beautiful crystal glass flacon. A solid version of the fragrance is also included within a silver compact. This custom fragrance package costs $450.00 (although the company is Canadian, all prices are in U.S. dollars).

If you can't wait 6-8 weeks for a custom fragrance, Ms. Sender is also offering a limited edition Valentine's Day fragrance called Roses et Chocolat. It is described as a gourmand or oriental/spicy perfume with notes of allspice, amber, benzoin, cocoa, nutmeg, pepper and rose. This perfume costs $110.00 for an 8 ml flacon and is also available as a flavored tea. Ayala Moriel fragrances can be ordered from www.ayalamoriel.com.

DSH Perfumes Custom Fragrance

Dawn Spencer Horowitz is another master natural perfumer with a line of upscale unique fragrances. Her website, www.dshperfumes.com, features two lines: Parfum de Beaux Arts, which are unique historically-inspired ready to wear perfumes, and Essence Oils, which are concentrated natural perfume essences.

The Essence Oil line offers a custom fragrance option for $475.00, which will get you a 2 ounce eau de toilette spray and a 1 dram essence purse roller. This process also starts with a questionnaire, after which Ms. Horowitz provides three sample fragrances and three rounds of revision before the final product is settled on. DSH custom perfume comes with a money-back guarantee. Ms. Horowitz has also created a limited edition ready-to-wear Valentine's Day fragrance, called St. Valentine, with notes of violet, rose and chocolate. This scent comes in a variety of formats, from a one dram oil purse roller for $25.00 to a deluxe gift set for $89.50.

Ms. Horowitz also offers the option of reproducing a fragrance, which is great for those with a beloved discontinued scent. This option costs $575.00.

As a Valentine's Day special, Ms. Horowitz is offering 14% off of any order on her website through February 7 with the code VAL14. This code can be reused indefinitely until it expires, and is valid for all orders from the site, including sale-priced items.

Luckyscent Custom Fragrance

If you want to play perfumeur and create your own custom fragrance, order the Susanne Lang Couture Blend Kit from www.luckyscent.com. This kit costs $95 and contains 10 bottles of 5 ml essential oils and extracts, including Grapefruit Citron, Neroli Blossom, Aqua Marine, Himalayan Rose, Tuberose Absolute, Vintage Patchouli, Nude Musk, Opulent Spice, Amberwood, and Vanilla. Each scent can be worn individually or they can be mixed and matched to create a signature custom scent. The kit also comes with a funnel and atomizer so you can blend larger batches when you hit upon a combination you like. Lucky Scent includes free fragrance samples with any fragrance purchase, so you can try out some of their other unique fragrance offerings as well.

Luckyscent is also offering a pair of chocolate gift sets especially for Valentine's Day. The first is the Montale Chocolate Gift Set, which includes a 100 ml container of the Montale fragrance Chocolate Greedy and four pieces of John Kelly artisanal truffle fudge in chocolate, dark chocolate, mint chocolate and vanilla chocolate flavors. This set costs $25 and comes giftwrapped in a gold box with red bow. The Serendipitous Chocolate Gift Set comes with a 50 ml bottle of the Serendipity 3 chocolate scent Serendipitous, and an eight piece box of the John Kelly fudge in the following flavors: cappucino, caramel, chocolate with walnuts, dark chocolate with walnuts, dark chocolate without nuts, mint chocolate, peanut butter chocolate, and vanilla chocolate with walnuts.

Clinique Happy Custom Fragrance

Finally, if your loved ones adore mass market fragrances but you still want to give them something unique, Clinique is offering a customized bottle of its best-selling Happy fragrance for $52, which is only $2.50 more than an ordinary bottle. This offer is available from their website only and allows you to upload a photo that meets with certain technical requirements, which will be turned into a custom label within 7-10 days. For delivery in time for Valentine's Day, orders must be placed by January 31, 2008 with Overnight Service selected.