Health & Beauty : Centenary Fragrances, French Décor and Enthusiasm in the Khmer Kingdom
- Editorial team
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
Take a French perfume house founded more than 160 years ago on Rue Saint-Honoré. Add a French importer, a French distributor, a hotel owned by a French group—and crown it all with the most charming and dynamic influencers in the Kingdom. The recipe for a successful launch, Phnom Penh version.
It was at the Raffles Hotel Le Royal that the official launch of the Roger & Gallet range in Cambodia took place this Monday, June 15. Tables adorned with floral arrangements in peach and almond-green tones evoked a southern garden under the tropics. It was a celebration of the senses.
The afternoon was entirely devoted to discovering the range that will soon fill the beauty shelves of Ucare pharmacies—exclusive distributor in Cambodia. A quiz on France and perfumes, a blind test with blotters stamped with the R&G monogram, and to conclude, a film retracing the history of the house. The invited influencers joined in with enthusiasm that could not be feigned—at one point, three of them were simultaneously comparing their wrists, exchanging expressive glances.
The voices of the launch
Thon Sakkakna, a medical student and influencer, was first won over by the texture. Not the bottle, not the packaging—the texture. The scented water, applied to the back of the hand, is non-sticky, dries quickly, and leaves a softness she did not expect.
“My hand is really soft, and it smells really good,” she said simply.
She already uses L’Oréal Paris and Coco Chanel daily, and appreciates French products as much for their history as for their quality. She plans to repurchase the lotion as soon as her PR box is finished—the kind of spontaneous statement that outweighs any survey.
Pascal Catry, CEO of the Ucare Pharmacy network, speaks with the precision of someone who has experienced this moment before with other French luxury products and drawn lessons from it. Roger & Gallet, he says, used to be the gift given to grandfathers and grandmothers—a respectable brand, somewhat serious, somewhat static. The current range has broken with all that: it targets a younger clientele, plays on sensoriality, immediate freshness, pleasure without justification.
“It’s a true rejuvenation for a 160-year-old brand.”
For Ucare, exclusivity fits into a coherent strategy: being a healthcare professional is no longer enough; one must also be a wellness professional. After Nuxe—slow to start, then solid—the chain is betting on Roger & Gallet with an advantage Pascal Catry sums up in one sentence:
“Some French products need to be tried on the skin to be appreciated. Here, you can simply smell them—and adopt them.”
The olfactory argument is immediate. No need to convince. You just have to open a bottle.
The range: what we saw, touched, smelled
The Fleur d’Osmanthus Wellbeing Soap (100 g) is the piece most faithful to the house’s history. Round, wrapped in its pleated yellow-green paper tightened like a rosette, encircled by a ribbon adorned with coral flowers—it is “perfumed to the core,” according to the formula invented in 1879.
Osmanthus, an Asian flower with notes of peach and slightly honeyed apricot, triggered a few exclamations during the blind test. No one identified it. Everyone loved it.
The Fleur d’Osmanthus Hand Cream (30 ml), in its orange and anise-green patterned tube, disappears into the skin within seconds without leaving a film.
This detail—the non-greasy texture—came up in almost every conversation that afternoon. In a tropical climate, it is almost a sine qua non condition.
The Cédrat Wellbeing Shower Gel (200 ml), in a bright yellow tube, smells exactly as citron should: clean, slightly sweet, not chemical.
On the display, wedges of lime and Granny Smith apples accompanied the bottle—a staging choice that conveyed everything without a word.
The scented water—direct heir to the original Eau de Cologne—comes in a discreet, almost austere transparent bottle. It was the most passed around. Light, it is worn like one would wear a good mood.
A story that begins in Cologne… and ends on Rue Saint-Honoré
To understand Roger & Gallet, one must go back well before 1862. The story actually begins in Italy, in the footsteps of a young man named Giovanni Paolo Feminis, who in 1693 invented a miraculous water—Aqua Mirabilis—based on eighteen medicinal plants grown in the herb garden of a Florentine convent. This formula would travel to Cologne, giving birth to what the whole world would know as Eau de Cologne.
It was in 1862 that merchant Charles Armand Roger and banker Charles Martial Gallet officially founded the house by acquiring the Parisian perfumery created in 1806 by Jean Marie Joseph Farina—the grand-nephew of Giovanni Maria Farina, the inventor of Eau de Cologne. With it, they inherited the original formula and an address: Rue Saint-Honoré.
Heirs to a distiller’s and apothecary’s expertise, the two partners modernized the world of perfumery through olfactory innovations and new forms, inventing the perfumed beauty ritual as we still know it today.
In 1879, the house’s most iconic object was born: the first round soap in history, scented with violet and wrapped in pleated silk paper. The shape, the ribbon, the central medallion—all still exist, unchanged, a century and a half later. This is rare enough in the cosmetics industry to be worth noting.
In 1932, the Boutique du Bonheur opened in Paris, attracting clients such as Marilyn Monroe and Maria Callas. At the beginning of the 20th century, the house had already commissioned René Lalique to create the jewel-like bottles for its fragrances Narkiss, Cigalia, and Jade. Perfumery and decorative art, one and the same pursuit.
Owned by the L’Oréal group for several decades, the brand was sold in 2020 to Impala SAS, which revitalized its momentum with a deliberately younger and more sensorial positioning. This is the version Cambodians are discovering today—and it is safe to say that Raffles Le Royal did not witness a polite reception. It witnessed a true love at first sight.
The Roger & Gallet range is available exclusively at Ucare pharmacies in Cambodia.
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