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Christmas is a time for loving and giving, for Nativity scenes in shop windows, for men standing awkwardly at perfume counters, staring at the powdered faces of the sales assistants as though struggling to understand a new language.

Perfume can be a fabulous gift. As perfume houses are keen to point out, the essences contained in fine fragrance are often more troublesome to extract and far costlier than gold.

But fiscal worth doesn't guarantee its success as a present. It can be a disastrous gift if the wrong scent is chosen.

While some fragrance-wearers have found their olfactory utopia, and will remain faithful to one scent for life, most of us are still conducting brief flirtations and one-bottle flings.

For those who have found their eternal essence, the gift-buying is easy, but will bring little joy. It is the imagination and thought that goes into choosing an appropriate scent that gives perfume value as a gift.

So how do you begin selecting a scent from the hundreds available?

Apparently 60% of perfume-purchasing decisions are made from marketing images. It's not as fickle as it may sound. Packaging and promotion can be useful in matching a perfume to a personality. Clinique's Happy, for example, is sold with images denoting youth and vitality.

The scent is accordingly a light, bright floral and suits a young and carefree person. Vivienne Westwood's Boudoir, on the other hand, is as richly sensual and feminine as the pink packaging, the bejeweled bottle and the Botticelli painting the advertising image emulates.

A perfume should reflect everything the wearer is and ever wants to be and, as preposterous as some of the marketing spiel may be, it can help to establish the character of the scent's potential wearer.

For most of the 1990s, fresh, watery scents based around callone, a chemical originally formulated to perfume washing powder, have been the thing (think Polo Sport Women) and unisex scents have emerged (CkOne and its followers).

Now there is a backlash against these ozonic fragrances and the fashion is for more sensual, exotic scents such as Dior's Hypnotic Poison and Gucci's Rush. For the more individually minded fashionista, the trend is for single-note scents (fig, rose or wisteria) from niche brands such as L'Artisan Parfumeur, Fresh, Chantecaille and Jo Malone.

Though it's helpful to be aware of fragrance fashions, it is also important to remember that perfume tastes often transcend the trends.

So how can we limit the risks involved in choosing a fragrance for someone else? "Fragrances fall into different families: floral, Oriental, chypre and ozonic," says Roja Dove, Guerlain's professor of perfume, who is an authority on all aspects of perfumery. So identify the personality in question, then target a fragrance to suit.

FEMININE Fragrance type: Floral Character: Lighthearted, sweet-natured and tastefully feminine in her dress Who: Gwyneth Paltrow What: Joy by Jean Patou, Chanel No 5, Diorissimo by Dior, Happy by Clinique, Aqua di Gio by Armani

DISCREET Fragrance type: Chypre Character: Discreetly feminine, she is stylishly understated in her dress Who: Audrey Hepburn What: Mitsouko by Guerlain, Femme de Rochas, Miss Dior by Dior

SEDUCTIVE Fragrance type: Oriental Character: Overtly feminine and flirtatious, she is the seductress with the plunging decollete Who: Sophie Dahl What: Shalimar by Guerlain, Opium by YSL, Angel by Thierry Mugler, Must de Cartier SPORTY Fragrance type: Ozonic Character: Sporty, active and compassionate, casual and androgynous in style Who: Natalie Imbruglia What: Polo Sport Woman by Ralph Lauren, Escape by Calvin Klein, L'Eau d'Issey by Issey Miyake

MEN

MR. NATURAL Fragrance type: Dry-woody Character: A natural sort of guy who hates artifice Who: Joseph Fiennes What: Vetiver by Guerlain, Equipage by Herm?s

BON VIVEUR Fragrance type: Oriental Character: likes the finer things in life Who: Pierce Brosnan What: Santos by Cartier, Ego?ste by Chanel

MASCULINE Fragrance type: Fougeres Character: deeply masculine, with no soft feminine edges Who: Robert De Niro What: Xeryus by Givenchy, Paco Rabanne, Mouchoir de Monsieur by Guerlain

UNDERSTATED Fragrance type: Citrus Character: appealing, understated and discreet Who: Robert Redford What: Eau Sauvage by Dior, Monsieur Givenchy, CkOne

Believe in Medved!