Ginger Rose

Seems inspired by L'Heure Bleue or similar, with a more animalic drydown.

Ginger Rose is from the house of Aether Arts under the diligent nose of perfumer Amber Jobin. Amber’s perfume Love for 3 Oranges (cheekily named after the Prokofiev opera) was a finalist in this year’s Art & Olfaction awards, and she won two years ago for her perfume John Frum. The top notes of Ginger Rose include: aldehydes, pink pepper, bergamot and ginger. Middle notes are Bulgarian rose, white rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, heliotrope, and carnation. Base notes are tonka bean, benzoin, amber, orris, olibanum, myrrh, sandalwood, beeswax, and indole. This scent could be classed as an aldehydic floriental. Amber works in oils exclusively, so this does not use alcohol as a base. This is a mixed media piece, containing about two-thirds naturals and one-third synthetics. Ginger Rose opens up with a quick-fading bergamot followed by a spicy ginger undergirded with some wonderful pink pepper. While ginger is one of my favorite notes in perfumery, it also seems to be one of the least utilized – or at least rarely gets a platform all its own. The pepper complements the citrusy, floral sharpness of the ginger beautifully. In the heart, you can smell the combination of the two roses along with a lovely, lightly powdery, slightly lipstick-like orris. I don’t detect any jasmine at all, but it might be used just for the indoles to give the other florals a bit of “lift.” Sometimes rose and jasmine – my two favorite florals – can blend into one another seamlessly. The dry down has the creaminess of natural beeswax mixed with tonka for sweetness and indoles for the animalic notes. Amber calls this an aldehydic floriental, but the aldehydes are somewhat tamped down, at least on my skin, though I still get a bit of champagne-like effervescence in the opening. This is the first perfume in Amber’s Vintage series, a line of perfumes which is meant to evoke the great perfumes of the 1940s and 50s. Before I even knew this little tidbit about Ginger Rose, the first thing that came to mind after it had a chance to dry down a bit was Guerlain, especially the early classics: the spicy rose of Nahema extrait mingled with the sweetness of Shalimar’s drydown. On her Etsy site, Amber writes “I thought about movie stars from the era and what they might have worn. I also smelled many vintage examples from the period before creating this fragrance homage to another era.” James Dean or Marlene Dietrich would have been wise to toss their chintzy Knize Ten and opt for a bottle of this instead. I can only imagine smelling this on James Dean. Purr! Ginger Rose is loaded with some of my all-time favorite notes in perfumery: ginger, rose, jasmine, orris, beeswax, sandalwood, and with animalic dry down. However, in an opinion I’m trying to make as objective as possible, I think this is a success in every way. Everything about it conjures the likes of a Jean Harlow or a Lauren Bacall, but at the end of the day, I think would still be amazing on a man. As if things couldn’t get any better, Ginger Rose comes in a 45% concentration. There are many pure extraits that are not this concentrated. The higher concentration elongates the middle and the base of the perfume. Long after the rose and orris are gone, that waxy, slightly animalic base lingers on for maybe three or four hours. It’s the perfect end to a lovely olfactory creation.