The best gift cards for Mother's Day

The trouble with buying for your mother is that she rarely tells you what she wants, and the things she does want are specific. The right shade, the right size, the brand she has used for fifteen years. A gift card sidesteps all of that. She picks the thing herself, at the moment she has time to think about it, rather than politely accepting something she will never use. There is a practical side too. Mother's Day gift cards are digital, so one ordered on the Saturday night is in her inbox before breakfast on Sunday. If you are a long way from home, that matters more than the gift itself.

Each of these suits a different kind of mum, so read them as eight starting points rather than a ranking of who deserves what.

1. Mum Choice Gift Card

The Mum Choice Gift Card is our own choice gift card in a design made for the day. She redeems it on giftcard.co.nz and swaps the amount for the brand she wants, and the balance can be split across more than one card. For the mother who has opinions and would rather use them than be surprised.

2. Adore Beauty gift card

An Adore Beauty gift card covers skincare, haircare and makeup from the brands she reads about and then talks herself out of. Beauty is the category where getting it slightly wrong is easiest, because the wrong shade or the wrong formula goes straight in a drawer. She knows exactly which serum she has been meaning to try.

3. Superette gift card

A Superette gift card goes towards New Zealand fashion, homeware and the small things that make a room feel considered. It suits the mum who notices what a shop has done with its window. Clothing is hard to buy for someone else, so letting her choose the cut and the fit is the whole point of the card.

4. T2 Tea gift card

A T2 Tea gift card buys loose leaf tea, teaware and the sort of blends that turn a Sunday morning into something slower. A good pick when the budget is modest and you still want the gift to feel deliberate. She works out whether she is a chai person or a green tea person, which is not a decision anyone else can make for her.

5. Peter Alexander gift card

A Peter Alexander gift card covers sleepwear, robes and slippers, which is the category mothers are famously bad at buying for themselves. As the nights get colder in May it is well timed. Sizing is the usual trap with pyjamas, so this is a gift that is better chosen by the person wearing them.

6. Wallace Cotton gift card

A Wallace Cotton gift card is for bed linen, towels and homeware with a softer, older feel to it. For the mum whose house is already lovely and who still mutters about the state of the spare room sheets. Let her pick the colour, because linen is one of those things people are quietly particular about.

7. HotelCheque

HotelCheque is our own card for a night away, redeemed against hotels rather than against a shop. It works well when siblings club together and want the gift to be one proper thing instead of three small ones. She chooses the place and the dates, which is the part that makes it a break rather than an obligation.

8. Portmans gift card

A Portmans gift card brings workwear and occasion pieces for the mum who is still very much in the middle of her career. A blazer or a dress for something coming up beats another ornament. She gets to try it on first, which is more than you can say for anything you would have picked.

Write the message on the product page before you order, because that is the part she will read twice. Keep it specific rather than general. A line about the thing she actually did for you this year lands better than anything a card shop prints. Decide at checkout whether it comes to your inbox or goes straight to hers. Sending it to yourself is useful if you want to hand it over at lunch, and sending it to her is the better call if you live at the other end of the country. And if the truth is that you genuinely do not know what she is into any more, the All-in-1 Choice Gift Card covers the widest range on the site and leaves the decision entirely with her.