Roger Et Gallet Gingembre Rouge (2014)

Feast Your Eyes Upon The Bottle & The Story Because This is Where it Stops

Gingembre Rouge (Red Ginger) is the newest fresh eau by Roger et Gallet. The description sounds promising enough, except it turns out that the perfume itself has not been sent the company memo about how it was supposed to smell, not just to sound like,

The façade story: "Inspired by a port of call in Zanzibar, Gigembre Rouge reveals the sensuality and freshness of ginger in all of its states: fresh, in bloom, crystallized on a background of incandescent sunsets on the ocean, of soft sand beaches and a luxuriating nature"...

Officially co-signed by perfumers Alberto Morillas and Amandine Clerc-Marie, you might have expected a decent effort at an olfactory study of red ginger even if an imaginary one. Roger et Gallet have a few good perfumes, like Lavande Royale or the Eau de Cologne de Jean-Marie Farina.

The new eau is just a rehash of a banal gourmand fruity-vanillic accord coupled with - not red ginger - but rather pink peony. This is where the hand of Alberto Morillas can be recognized. The peony is pretty. 

What the fragrance best succeeds at in the end is in reviving and imprinting in the Zeitgeist the iconic peony accord of master Morillas more widely and originally experienced in Estée Lauder Pleasures. 

Pass. 

Notes: ginger, mandarin, pomegranate, ginger blossoms, orange flowers, lychee blossoms, crystallized ginger accord, cedar wood and musk.