Pine cone ginger, Shampoo Ginger. All parts of this ginger are spicy fragrant. The cone shaped flowers are long lasting and useful for cut flower arrangements. This plant is most widely known around the world as the Shampoo Ginger for the milky substance in the cones, and it is in fact used as a shampoo in Asia and Hawaii, and as an ingredient in several commercial shampoos. Pinecone ginger is considered a canoe plant, that is, a plant introduced throughout the Pacific by the ancient Polynesian settlers.