If you suffer diary dyslexia like me, and didn’t realise Mother’s Day is in two days time, here are some last-minute gift ideas that will look like you’ve been thinking about her for weeks.

31 Rue Cambon edt, £160 for 200ml, by Chanel, has been described as a classical masterpiece. In Perfumes: The Guide (Profile Books, £20), co-author Luca Turin ‘cannot remember the last time, if ever, a perfume gave me such an instantaneous impression of ravishing beauty at first sniff.’ This chypre-esque fragrance is elegant, blowsy, sophisticated, soft, rich and sparkling – in other words a perfectly balanced fragrance that she’ll enjoy wearing as much as you will (when you borrow it).

Japanese Agarwood Variations, £90, by Lisa Hoffman, is the latest in the ‘Variations’ line from Lisa ‘wife of Dustin’ Hoffman. She developed the idea of one scent rendered in variants for different times of day, according to our olfactory sensitivities – a more invigorating version for the morning, for example; a very soft one for bed time. The result in this case is a pretty, pale blue leather wallet containing four glass vials with roller-ball tops – each one a variant on the elegant, energizing Japanese agarwood scent – presented in matching tissue paper and box. All very luxury gift, in other words, and great for impressing la mamma.

Baume Splendide Mains, £28, by Annick Goutal is a rose-scented hand cream whose packaging makes it pretty as well as practical. Beef it up a bit by adding the Annick Goutal Scented Candle in La Rose, £36 and you’ve got a perfect gift for – you guessed it – mums who love roses.

Crème De Corp, £42 for 500ml, by Kiehl’s. Don’t let mum let herself go. Encourage daily moisturisation by giving her this gorgeously scented, sink-straight-in cult body lotion. The enormous Kiehl’s bottle on prominent display in the bathroom will earn her cool points, too.

She’s more of a flowers-and-chocolate kind of Mum? The local service station hasn’t failed me yet.