One of my favorite perfume notes is that of gingerbread. There aren’t a whole heck of a lot of gingerbread perfumes out there. When I see one with it in the name it always captures my attention. As I was browsing the latest arrivals at the French department store Colette in preparation for some purchases I saw the French word for it “gingembre” in an unexpected place.
If we are going to have a discussion about the greatest living perfumer it will never take place without Alberto Morillas being part of it. In 1999 M. Morillas founded the company Mizensir to produce home fragrance in the form of candles at first and later expanding to room sprays. Earlier this year it was announced that Mizensir would begin to produce perfumes. The initial collection is comprised of nine new perfumes. I am interested in trying all of them but the one which caused me to use my credit card and buy it blind was Eau de Gingembre.
Alberto Morillas
Gingerbread is almost always a fall through spring fragrance choice for me. In the heat of the summer it is just too sweet. What intrigued me about the note list for Eau de Gingembre was this looked like it might be a gingerbread for the warm-weather months. As I waited patiently for it to find its way to my mailbox I was completely delighted to find out that this was a gingerbread-based perfume which I could wear on a hot day. This is very much a gingerbread eau de cologne even though it says eau de parfum on the box. The architecture of cologne is present while the strength of eau de parfum adds longevity.
M. Morillas opens Eau de Gingembre with a citrus flare of bergamot and petit grain combined with neroli. This is a classic cologne-style opening and M. Morillas allows it to provide that sunny energy these notes generally provide. The heart is where M. Morillas’ brilliance comes into play. His source of ginger is the supercritical fluid extracted version of ginger. This has the effect of having a much more multi-faceted scent profile. There is definitely more of the rooty character and there is also a subtle woody quality. It takes the normal synthetic versions of ginger and makes them seem flat and one dimensional. But ginger is not gingerbread something has to provide a creamy base. M. Morillas makes a fantastic choice in using fig leaves. The fig leaves provide that creamy quality converting the ginger into something richer and more gourmand. The other inspired part of this choice is it creates a very transparent version of gingerbread with this accord and not something too heavy. It all ends with the clean lines of cypress forming the woody base.
Eau de Gingembre has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.
Based on Eau de Gingembre I am very much looking forward to trying the other eight perfumes in the collection. There are definitely a couple, Mythique Vetyver and Musc Eternal, which almost ended up in my shopping cart too. I expect M. Morillas to have some more surprises for me when I finally try those and the others. For now the ability to cover myself in Eau de Gingembre while the summer continues on is enough for me.
Disclosure: this review was based on a bottle I purchased.
–Mark Behnke
Recent Comments