Ginger
Warm, zesty ginger root with a peppery bite, lemony freshness and faint sweetness.
You may know it from Freshly grated ginger or ginger ale
Where it comes from
Steam-distilled from ginger root or made with aroma chemicals.
Botanical name: Zingiber officinale
About ginger
Perfumers use the same part of Zingiber officinale that cooks do: the rhizome, an underground stem of a flowering plant native to Southeast Asia. Nigeria is the world's third biggest producer, after India and China, according to a trade article. Sources disagree on how much of the world crop India grows: one source gives about 45% (2.2 of 4.9 million tonnes in 2023), while Bon Parfumeur says roughly a third.
Very little oil comes out of it. The volatile oil makes up only 1 to 3% of the weight of fresh ginger. Steam distillation is the most common way to extract it, and sources differ on the starting material: the laboratory work distilled dried, ground rhizome, while Pairfum says fresh or dried root. A supercritical CO2 study of Peruvian ginger took a different route and got about 26 mg of extract from each gram of dry material.
The oil's main volatile is alpha-zingiberene. In one hydro-distilled sample it made up 22.18% of the oil, followed by beta-sesquiphellandrene at 11.05%. That is a single sample, so treat the numbers as an illustration. The CO2 extract in the Peruvian study also held gingerols, with 254.71 mg of 6-gingerol per gram.
Heat changes the chemistry. Gingerols turn into shogaols during heating, storage or exposure to acid, and shogaols are more pungent.
The Good Scents Company lists the two kinds of oil differently. Its entry for fresh-rhizome oil reads spicy, fresh and citrusy with a sparkling top note. The CO2 extract is peppery and lemony, with a woody, rooty side.
Bois de Jasmin points to Serge Lutens Five O'Clock au Gingembre, which pairs ginger with brown sugar and black treacle.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Ginger in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Ginger most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Ginger
Fragrances that list it in their notes, most-rated first.
Houses that use it most
Ranked by how many of their well-known fragrances list Ginger.