Gift for a Best Friend Who Is Becoming a Dad

You are both about to see less of each other

The honest starting point for this gift is a thing neither of you will say. The friendship is about to change shape. Not end, not fade, but change - fewer unplanned evenings, more scheduling, more cancellations for reasons that are entirely legitimate, and a year or two where the easy part of it gets harder. Both of you already know this. It is why the standard gift for this occasion is a joke about sleep or a last hurrah item, because a joke is how two friends acknowledge something without having to sit in it. That instinct is sound and the object is wrong. A novelty gift names the thing, gets its laugh, and then goes onto a shelf in a flat that has no shelves left, and after that it does nothing at all. Consider what a better gift does instead. It goes somewhere he actually is, repeatedly, in the period when you are seeing less of him. Not as a sentimental reminder - nothing needs engraving and nothing needs a message - but simply as a thing he uses, that came from you, at moments when you are not around. That is a much quieter gesture and it lasts considerably longer than a laugh. So look at where he will be. The answer, overwhelmingly, is the car. He is driving to scans and appointments now, waiting in car parks for appointments that run over, doing errands that became urgent an hour ago, and ferrying relatives. After the birth, he will be driving more, not less, including the eleven o'clock circuit of the neighbourhood with a baby who will not settle. And the car quickly becomes the one place he sits by himself for twenty minutes before going inside - which is, not coincidentally, roughly the slot where he will call you. A hanging car perfume at four hundred and forty-nine to five hundred and nine rupees is the most direct gift available and almost nobody thinks of it. Jasmine is four hundred and forty-nine, Lavender and Sandalwood four hundred and seventy-nine, Icy Mint four hundred and eighty-nine, Lemon four hundred and ninety-nine, Vetiver, Sea Breeze and Oud five hundred and nine. Two-piece combinations are eight hundred and ninety-nine to nine hundred and forty-nine, 15ml refills three hundred and ninety-nine to four hundred and forty-nine if he has a holder already, a Mysore Orange Blossom car spray five hundred and forty-nine, and a three-piece discovery set six hundred and ninety-nine if you would rather he found his own register. At the premium end the SOSA Safar at three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine rupees is a waterless car perfume diffuser, and for somebody about to spend an extraordinary number of hours driving it is a far more considered gift than the price suggests. Nebuliser refills are one thousand and forty-nine rupees for a hundred grams. The second place he will be is carrying a bag, which is where the solid perfume earns its place. At four hundred and fifty-nine to five hundred and forty-nine rupees it is fifteen grams of alcohol-free balm in a flat compact, applied with a finger. No cap to unscrew and lose in a car park. Cannot spill into a bag or a glovebox. Survives months of being carried around. And it works with one hand, which sounds trivial today and stops sounding trivial within a fortnight of the birth. Titan at five hundred is Arabica coffee, roasted wood, black pepper, frankincense and leather. Beast at five hundred and forty-nine is smoked whiskey, roasted coffee, spicy leather, amber resin and vanilla bark. Sway at four hundred and fifty-nine is dark cherry, espresso, cocoa, red patchouli and vanilla husk. Siren at four hundred and eighty-nine is black cherry, espresso, warm vanilla and cedar smoke. Sterling at four hundred and sixty-nine is coconut milk, almond nougat, white amber and powdered musk. The quieter personal option is an alcohol-free attar at three hundred and seventy-nine to three hundred and ninety-nine rupees, a 12ml glass roll-on of undiluted perfume oil with no alcohol carrier, which opens softly and stays within an arm's length rather than projecting across a room - well suited to a year spent in cars, corridors and close quarters. Nawaab at three hundred and ninety-nine is the most obviously masculine, a white oud composition built with Mysore sandalwood and Kashmir saffron rather than a dehn al oud distillate. Ameeri at three hundred and eighty-five is Taif rose with Indian sandalwood. If he has worn the same designer thing for years and you would rather stay in that direction without pretending, the Inspired By range starts at five hundred and ninety-nine and names its inspiration openly - Tabac Noir for tobacco and vanilla, Samundar for aquatic and marine, Khayaal for sparkling bergamot and neroli, Zaffran for saffron with sweet amber. These are SOSA's own interpretations and are not affiliated with any other house. Two structural suggestions that cost nothing. First, give it before the birth rather than after. His window of discretionary attention closes with a phone call and does not reopen for six to eight weeks - parcels will stack unopened and anything requiring a decision will be put down and rediscovered next month. This is the opposite of the advice for the mother, where later is often better, and it is worth getting right. Second, if you want to do the most useful thing available to a best friend specifically, split it: something now, and something at about eight weeks. The eight-week gift is the one almost nobody gives, because by then everybody else has stopped entirely - the visitors have thinned, the messages have tapered, and the two of them are alone with a routine that has not settled. Turning up then, with anything at all, is worth more than doubling your spend now. Two things to leave alone. Do not buy for the baby: fifteen to thirty parcels are already arriving addressed to somebody who has not been born, and in any case SOSA makes no products for babies or children - nothing in this range is intended for a nursery, a cot, a pram or a child's belongings. And do not give him a project to assemble or configure. He has spent three months assembling things from instructions written by optimists, and the best gift you can hand him arrives finished and asks him for nothing.

Gifts that live where you still overlap

Everything here goes where he goes. Nothing needs engraving, nothing needs a message, and nothing needs assembling - it just has to be used.

Related: best gifts for a dad-to-be, before the baby arrives and for a best friend who just became a father. The other side: gift for a pregnant best friend. Also the complete guide by relationship and budget. Shop the car perfumes from ₹449, the solid perfumes from ₹459 and the attars from ₹379.

The SOSA return gift ladder

Everything here is handmade in small batches in India, and a portion of every order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali. The ladder below runs from the cheapest thing SOSA makes to the tier worth giving close friends. Bulk quantities are quoted on WhatsApp at ₹+91 96192 18531 rather than published, because the right rate depends on quantity, mix and date.

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