We sort our birthday gifts into men’s, women’s and unisex because people like to start somewhere familiar, and most do. It is a fair filter. It sets aside what is less likely to fit and leaves what might suit. But it has never been the end of the decision for us. The same gift often suits a man or a woman just as well, which is why a good number of ours sit in more than one part of the range, and the things that actually decide a birthday gift, the kind of birthday you want to give and how well you know the person, sit outside the category altogether.

Where the Category Runs Out

A sender almost always knows whether they are buying for a man or a woman before they start, so the men’s and women’s pages are not solving a mystery. What they are doing is narrowing a long list. They take a range of well over a hundred birthday gifts and point you at the part of it that suits the person in front of you, quietly passing over anything less likely to suit. On a busy evening with a birthday coming up, that is a real help, and it is why most people begin there.

What the page cannot do is choose the gift. Once you know you are buying for a man, you still know very little about the gift you should send. You do not know whether the birthday wants marking quietly or celebrating loudly, or how well the sender knows the person, and that is where the choice is really made. We see the same thing in our own range every day. One gift will often sit under both the men’s and the women’s birthday pages because it suits either equally, and we keep a full unisex range that is not sorted by gender at all, because so much of what makes a birthday gift land has nothing to do with whether the recipient is a man or a woman.

So the useful question is not who the gift is for, which you already know. It is what that tells you about what to send, and the honest answer is that it tells you where to look and not much more. The category gets you to the right area of the range. What you choose once you are there comes down to the person and the kind of birthday you want to give them, not the heading at the top of the page.

It helps to be clear about what the men’s and women’s pages actually are. They are closer to a record of who these gifts have tended to be sent to than a statement about the gifts themselves. A gift sits on the men’s page because men have often been the ones receiving it, not because there is anything in it a woman would not want, and that is why the same gift can turn up in more than one place. The three below are a fair test of it. Each comes from a different category, each differs from the others in the kind of birthday it gives rather than in anything about the person receiving it, and each would suit the same adult wherever it had been filed.

Robust Birthday Gift Basket (€109.62)

The Robust Birthday Gift Basket sits in the men’s category, and its own description does expect men to take to it. It then says, in the same breath, that the gift is not gender specific and would suit a woman who likes something bold and classic just as well. That is the category doing what it is meant to do, hinting rather than ruling. It points a sender towards a generous, substantial gift and leaves the real choice open.

At the centre is a red wine the sender picks, sitting among chocolates and a few savoury things. The wine is the feature, but there is nothing male about it. A good red suits whoever enjoys one, which is rather the point. The men’s heading narrowed the search to a hearty food and drink gift. Whether it was the right birthday gift came down to the person opening it, not the page it was found under.

One of these went to a brother turning sixty who was spending the day on his own, and the reaction that came back was about the gift rather than the gesture.

"I sent a hamper to my brother for his 60th Birthday, during Lockdown No.2. He lives alone and was thrilled with it. He said the flavours were amazing and he's enjoyed every item in the hamper. Well done"

-A.G. Kirkwood

Better Birthday Gift Basket (€107.31)

The Better Birthday Gift Basket sits on the women’s pages and was put together with women in mind. Its description does not leave it there. It adds that the gift could just as easily suit a man, perhaps someone drawn to the calm of its design or with an eye on a particular thing inside it. The same pattern holds. The category is a steer, not a verdict.

The gift is built around a magazine the sender chooses, with a birthday candle alongside it. The giveaway is the magazine list, which runs from Top Gear and GQ to Woman and Home, travel and golf. A gift whose main feature is set by the person’s own interest is plainly not a gift sorted by gender. The sender fits it to the individual. The category only thinned the list to begin with.

A daughter sent one to her mother and put the response simply.

"Beautiful hamper that made my mother very happy on her birthday. I had a special request for the delivery and Aimee at customer service went above and beyond to help me. I highly recommend the products or company as a whole."

-Deborah

Birthday Mugs and Hugs Hamper (€121.31)

The Birthday Mugs and Hugs Hamper is the clearest case, because we file it under no gender at all. Its description calls it colourful and inclusive and treats any gender steer as a light hint the sender can override completely. It is a gift made for whoever the birthday belongs to, which is where the men’s and women’s pages were quietly heading all along.

It is personalised with a birthday mug set to the age being marked, among a generous spread of sweet and savoury things. The mug is the part that stays, sitting in the cupboard long after the day itself, and it is chosen for the person and their birthday rather than for a man or a woman. Nothing in the gift needed a category to work.

Another was sent from abroad to family in Ireland, chosen because it did not have to suit any one person in particular.

"Really Nice Hamper, much appreciated Birthday Present by my family in Ireland, something for everyone. Delivered on the date I selected. Posting presents from overseas, where I live, has become ridiculously expensive and costs more than the present, so I have started using companies based in Ireland to send them present - much better value for money."

-Anonymous

This is the part that matters most to us, and it is worth saying plainly. A category earns its keep by cutting a long range down to something a sender can actually take in, which is a real service and not a small one. But the cut is the easy part. The work we hold ourselves to is what comes after it, making gifts that still make sense once the simple label has done its job. A gift that only works because it was filed under the right heading is not really a gift. It is a guess with a label on it. The ones we stand over are the ones that would hold up whichever page you found them on, because the thought went into the gift and not the sorting.

None of this makes the men’s and women’s pages a wrong place to start. They are a sensible one. They move a sender quickly to the part of the birthday range more likely to suit the person, which matters when there are well over a hundred gifts to look through. What they cannot do is the part that comes after, working out whether a particular gift is right for a particular person.

That is the part we have spent more than twenty years on. Every gift is put together by the same team that designed it, in one building in Ireland, and personalised to the person whose birthday it is before it goes out. The men’s, women’s and unisex pages help you find a gift. Whether it suits the person is settled by the gift itself, and that is the part we make.

Published: June 2026 

Author: Amy & Aoife Saturn