Aveda Men's Pure-formance Photo: David Meredith
Aveda Men Pure-Formance (Estee Lauder)
Perfumer: Ko-ichi Shiozawa
Family: Aromatic
Key notes: Lemon, orange, spearmint, lavender, kunzea, vetiver
Price: $99.95 for 50ml
Rating: 3/5
I didn't even know Aveda had an in-house perfumer, let alone a brilliant Japanese one by the name of Ko-ichi Shiozawa. Credited with helping to make Aveda a success story, Shiozawa has a tough job when it comes to fine fragrances. Not only does he have to use natural materials, which limits his olfactory palette dramatically – but he has to use only organic ingredients.
Instead of having 3000 materials with which to work, he has a few hundred. Wondrously, with only a handful of these, he has created a complex yet classic modern men’s fragrance, which riffs on the traditions of aromatic perfumes.
He takes the lavender and vetiver that are typical of this style and layers them under an opening of lemon and orange accords. He then deepens the forest floor base of Men Pure-Formance with a myrtle-like material called kunzea and brightens the top with a compelling spearmint note that is almost glacial.
This isn’t a cold or sterile scent, however. Shiozawa, who trained in France and has been the nose behind Aveda’s products for nearly two decades, swirls peaty sharpness around a Zen-like heart like ice cubes in a glass of scotch. It is whole-some and hardy but is also rich and harmonious. This is an original.
