Whether it’s Valentine’s Day, an anniversary or just a thoughtful gesture, choosing a romantic gift is quite tricky. To help you think outside the chocolate box, we’ve put together a shortlist of ideas to inspire you.
It’s often hard not to go down the generic route when it comes to romantic gifts – flowers, cologne, chocolates or Champagne.
They all work fine, but they don’t necessarily show the most important element in giving a romantic gift:
It’s very much the thought that counts.
Bearing in mind what the person likes, is interested in or that’s important to them can help point you in the direction, but finding something that’s just a bit different from the rest makes a huge difference.
Here are a few ideas for romantic gifts that will really stand out when the one you love opens them.
Romantic gifts for the well-groomed
Braid Now online video course by Hair Romance
From one of the world’s biggest hair blogs, the Braid Now online video course takes you step by step through how to create beautiful braids in your own hair.
Christina (aka Mrs Romance) is a New York Times best-selling author and has multiple ebooks on braiding and styling hair. This course is the perfect gift for someone who’s always wanted to learn how to braid, but can’t quite nail it.
This course guides you from the basics through to more elaborate styles perfect for weddings and formals. But also how to style your hair quickly and effortlessly.
Check out Hair Romance’s Braid Now e-course here.
Manscaped
I love this male grooming kit from Manscaped. It’s that perfect mixture of high-quality, useful products and an earthy sense of humour.
Manscaped’s focus is on keeping everything downstairs neat, tidy and smelling good.
From the Lawn Mower clipper with its ceramic blade that doesn’t heat up and the Weed Whacker nose and ear hair trimmer to the Crop Preserver ball deodorant and Crop Reviver ball toner, this set will keep everything trim and shipshape.
Also, if you use our special code ‘MRANDMRSROMANCE’ at the checkout, you’ll get 20% off plus free shipping on your order.
Romantic gifts for to enjoy at home
Clare Makes – handmade candles
These beautifully crafted hand-poured candles fill the room with cleverly blended scents and burn for an amazingly long time. Even better, these are made (by Clare of course) in her Sydney workshop. Local. Small business. Hand-made. Tick, tick, tick.
Even more exciting – for us – is we’ve collaborated with Clare to create the Christina and Jim Martini candle. It’s amazing, it smells just like a gin and tonic.
Sweet, herbaceous, fruity and a hint of cucumber combine and bring a really uplifting aroma to the room.
Shop Clare Makes Candles here.
Massage at Home online massage course
Date nights are all well and good, but they can get a bit samey after a while. This video course by professionally trained Licensed Massage Therapist Becca Walker takes you through five massage techniques and a 20-minute follow-along neck, back and scalp massage.
She also gives you some great extra tips on how to recreate that luxury spa experience and what you need to do to get the right pressure. Such a fun way to reconnect with your other half.
Buy Becca’s Massage at Home e-course here.
Romantic gifts for the stylish innovator
Nordgreen – sustainable, responsible watches
This Danish company not only crafts stunning timepieces, it does so with the environment and humanity in mind.
With every watch sold, two months of water goes to the Central African Republic via Water for Good, a child in India gets a month’s education via Pratham UK and Cool Earth preserves 50m² of Latin American rainforest.
Not only that, but Nordgreen is focussed on remaining carbon neutral, offsetting the carbon footprint of its offices, manufacturing plants and even its freight by planting 1,000s of trees and by using sustainable packaging. It’s impressive.
And that’s the ‘green’ part of this company’s name.
As for the ‘Nord’ part, the design of these watches speaks for that. The ‘Scando style’ of this Pioneer timepiece is pretty clear. Beauty in simplicity, elegance in minimalism.
And yet there’s still so much functionality. The minutes of the watch’s one-hour timer ticks round the small inset face on the left while the seconds are counted by the long hand on the main face. You start, stop and reset with the top and bottom crown buttons.
The face on the right counts seconds in realtime and the straps have quick-release mechanisms so you can swap them out when you feel like it.
You can even buy packs that include extra straps. A men’s watch set like these gives you the watch itself plus two straps for the timepiece.
Tesalate beach towels
A sand-covered beach towel is not pleasant. But somehow this Aussie company has created a towel that repels sand. I didn’t believe it until I tried it – the sand just falls away. And yet, these towels are incredibly absorbent and even dry faster than other towels.
And even better than that, they pack away smaller than the big bulky things we’re all used to.
I love my single Swell towel l and have had it for a few years now, but the XL towels Tesalate have brought out are big enough for two to sit on and even make great picnic blankets.
And if you’re after a new workout towel, Tesalate now do a range that have an antimicrobial additive woven into the fabric.
Romantic gifts for the sophisticated drinker
Coravin wine preserving system
One of the most remarkable pieces of engineering you’re likely to see, Coravin allows you to have even just a sip of wine from a bottle then put that bottle back in the rack without it spoiling.
We’ve written a full review you can read here. Or check out our IGTV episode where I show you how it works.
View this post on Instagram
But basically, Coravin uses a medical-grade non-coring needle to push through the cork. This lets wine out while injecting inert argon gas into the bottle, avoiding the oxidisation that turns wine bad. You then remove the needle and the cork seals again.
It also works on screw cap wine with the special Coravin screw caps that have a thick silicone core that seals again like a natural cork.
Pure Scot Whisky cocktail kit
Pure Scot is a hand-blended Scotch whisky by Aussie-owned Bladnoch Distillery in the Lowlands of Scotland. You can read more about Bladnoch here, but Pure Scot, which uses whisky from a number of Scotch regions, is wonderfully smooth, complex and approachable.
Each small batch of Pure Scot Virgin Oak 43 is finished in new oak casks and is superb on its own or with a single ice cube. But the people at Pure Scot have switched things up with this excellent cocktail kit.
Finished in matte black, the cocktail shaker, strainer and double jigger give you all the tools to create delicious whisky cocktails, and for further inspiration, there’s even a little cocktail book included.
This whisky has such resilient flavours it stands up really well in a manhattan or old fashioned, but even with high-quality mixers.
Shop your Pure Scot cocktail kit here.
Buy a bottle of Aussie craft spirits
There are around 300 craft distilleries in Australia at the moment, but that still only makes up under 1% of all spirits consumed here. Yet the quality of these Australian spirits is incredibly high.
Our favourite place to buy Aussie craft spirits is from the brilliant Nip of Courage. This distributor and wholesaler champions Australian distillers and has an online shop of some of our most favourite tipples.
This whisky from Timboon Railway Shed Distillery in southern Victoria is absolutely outstanding – you can read a full review of this Port Expression single malt here.
Check out the Nip of Courage shop and get your loved one a bottle of something brilliant.