Ginseng

In this decade, the precious extrait de parfum has lost its way. Once a showcase for precious materials used in lavish concentration, the idea of overdose stuck while preciousness was lost; concentration became synonymous with strength, power, and tenacity. As these demands showed no sign of slowing down, concentration has ballooned up to 60%, signified by extreme, absolute, essence, and elixir labels. This misstep has produced many of the perfumed monsters of recent memory, compounded by the increasing prevalence of spiky superambers, dosed to unbelievable numbers without thought for equilibrium or grace. Somewhere along the way, these perfumers forgot that many materials, at 10%, were perfectly diluted to best showcase their character. As quantitative richness climbed, this soon inversely affected qualitative richness – which paradoxically became thinner. I have continued to wonder what good such an inflated concentration is, on purely aesthetic grounds? Once you pass the point of recognisable material richness and into the level of extremity, what’s there? Gin-Seng, at 50% concentration, finally answers the question, revealing what was wrong with this premise. The problem first lies with material choice and the fetishistic fixation for superambers. Dispense with them, or at least a heavy reliance upon them, and perfume becomes friendly again. The base is no longer forcibly shoved into the top of the perfume, and gone is the opacity and immovable sensation. It breathes. Though there is a unique stability that comes from textural thickness. Gin-Seng feels like impasto stuck on canvas, with an oiliness that preserves something of the liniment sense of its medicinal namesake. There is freshness but not airiness; traditional top note materials – basil, ginger, chamomile – emerge, in full presence, from a thick velvety blanket made from musk, cedar, and vetiver. Dynamism is preserved. The central ginseng note is faithful to the real stuff, which I know from Korean health tonics sweetened with honey and Asian spice blends prepared for broths, redolent of earth and soil, with a sharp tanginess and herbal-spicy hum. Gin-Seng is a green, medicinal, and aromatic-piquant fragrance with a woody finish fading into musk, avoiding the most tiresome clichés of this genre. Does it need to be dosed this high? Perhaps not. But thank The Different Company for showing how an extrait extreme might still be done in the most favourable sense of the term. Excess, it turns out, may still be handled with grace.

I wanted to love this. I hoped it would be a beautiful, natural, spicy scent, but unfortunately it has some issues. The ginseng is fighting against something else that's just coming off as an extremely strong after shave from the 90's. It's overpoweringly green and cologne-y. So strong that it gives me a headache. If you're looking for a more true ginger, highly recommend Molecule 01 + Ginger by Escentric Molecules.

Smells like pine trees lol not sure if that's what ginseng smells like but 🤷🏻♀️😂