Happy Friday the 13th! It’s also National Violin Day and National Hot Cocoa Day. Birthdays: Mary Todd Lincoln, Emily Carr, Ella Baker, Dick Van Dyke, Jamie Foxx. Our community project for today: wear a fragrance with ginger, if you have one.
What fragrance did you pick? As always, do chime in with your scent of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.
I’m in my bestest ginger, Demeter Gingerale…
The early-2020 closing of the Barneys New York flagship store on Madison Avenue was a sad moment for me. I’ve been shopping there for fragrance and makeup for longer than I care to admit, and I have happy memories of meeting the creators of various cosmetics and perfume brands during “personal appearance” events on the beauty floor. One of those creators was Yosh Han, whose line of perfume oils was carried by Barneys and was popular amongst Makeup Alley perfumistas in the early 2000s. I remember chatting briefly with Yosh and telling her how much I liked Winter Rose, among other scents in her collection.
I always kept an eye (and a nose) on Yosh’s work and even ran into her from time to time during her recurring New York visits. I worried a little when her perfume oils started vanishing from various online retailers a year or two ago, and then I was relieved to learn that a rebranding had been in progress…
French perfume house Molinard recently launched Les Amoureux de Peynet, a fragrance inspired by French illustrator Raymond Peynet. That name didn’t mean anything to me at first, but once I did a quick search, I realized I’d seen those “lovers” before. Peynet first sketched the duo of the wispy-haired, bowler-hatted violinist-poet and his perky lady-love in 1942, but they appeared in his artwork and on countless trinkets throughout the 1950s and 1960s. (Just check eBay, and you’ll see what I mean.) The lovers often appeared together on a park bench — that is, when they weren’t canoodling in a gazebo, a rowboat, or some similarly whimsical venue…
Ginger beer, ginger ale, ginger tea. Ginger-molasses cake with crystallized-ginger-and-cream-cheese frosting. Ginger ice cream. Ginger-y Southeast Asian soups. These are some of my favorite ginger-flavored drinks and foods. Ginger in fragrances? I don’t think ginger has been ‘served’ in perfume as well as other gourmand notes like vanilla, cocoa, cardamom, nutmeg or fruits. Bite into a fresh, crunchy ginger rhizome — has its zing, its heat, ever been realistically represented in a perfume? Is it even possible to do so?
This spring two ginger fragrances have been released: Yves Saint Laurent L’Homme Cologne Gingembre and Marc Jacobs Ginger (part of the Marc Jacobs Splash collection).
Original Yves Saint Laurent L’Homme is a bore. Yves Saint Laurent Cologne Gingembre takes us from ‘boredom’ to “queasiness.” Cologne Gingembre includes notes of bergamot, aquatic accord, ginger, white pepper, violet leaves, basil, cedar wood, oak moss, vetiver and musk…
Getting to know civet as a fragrance note can make you gag. Put some costus roots under your nose one fine morn and you may skip breakfast. “Investigating” ginger, doing your ginger homework, is more pleasant: take a crisp ginger root and rub it between your fingers, bruise it with your fingernail, and inhale its lively and clean aroma (bite into the root for added credit); smell and taste yellow powdered ginger; slowly chew a piece of sticky, candied ginger; drink an old fashioned spicy ginger ale; and finally, eat a moist slice of warm gingerbread, straight from the oven, washed down with a ginger infusion, made using boiling water and sliced ginger root (sugar and milk optional). You are now ready to recognize ginger in fragrance.
In his Five O’Clock Au Gingembre Eau de Parfum, Serge Lutens places candied (not fresh) ginger in a tea-time setting and surrounds it with foody notes…