Roots Source Red Tea

Roots Source, a subsidary of Roots the clothing company is all about making fragrances without all the harsh ingredients that are present in other traditional perfumes. While I don’t know if that approach is appropriate (or even possible), I am a fan of their Red Tea scent. Red Tea

In Bottle: Red Tea is a pretty generic fragrance. In the bottle it’s a mild sweetened red tea with  a soft fruity background. Nothing that would really wow me but it’s pleasant and nice all the same.

Applied: Same opening and mid-stage scent. It’s a clean, mildly sweet red tea with some berry-like application wedged in there. Really, this is a two note fragrance that works well for what it is. It smells nice. It’s a little refreshing. And it’s not anything else. The dry down simply doesn’t exist as this scent just disappears when it’s time to go. You’ll get a pleasant red tea scent out of it for about two hours and then the fragrance will just simply drop off. Red Tea has a major problem with longevity but when it is still around it smells pretty nice. Great office scent, low on the complexity and longevity meter though.

Extra: Now, I don’t know about the authenticity of Roots’ claim that this product is all natural. Especially given the monumental expense that comes with using naturals in a fragrance and the fact that a 30ml bottle of Red Tea would only run you about $20. Who knows, maybe when they said all natural, they didn’t mean the components of the scent itself but the fixative ingredients? At which point, why even bother calling it all natural if your core fragrance isn’t? This seems like one of those situations where a company sets out meaning to do good but probably hasn’t achieved that goal due to a lack of understanding.

Design: Red Tea is bottled in a pretty  ordinary glass cube with Roots Source on the glass and the name of the fragrance and it’s other important details affixed to the bottom on a sticker. The cap is a plastic ring that can be placed over the sprayer. Pretty utilitarian but it is a pleasant thing to look at.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Rooibos tea, acai berry, mango, melon, red tea leaf.

Red Tea makes a good fragrance if you want to go light on something and don’t mind reapply throughout the day. The lack of base notes on this stuff is a bit frustrating and it doesn’t help that it’s drop-off into scent oblivion happens so quickly either. Regardless, this is a good simple, clean, refreshing scent. It also makes a great room scent.

Reviewed in This Post: Red Tea, ~2009, Eau de Parfum.