Finding the molecules of Aventus 10K04 (Personal project)

[ts4r]

Hello everyone,

I would like to preface this by saying that when it comes to "perfect" perfumes, I widely consider those perfumes which ride in the air well, and are not "overly heavy" to be closest to "perfect".

In my eyes, I widely regard the following four fragrances to achieve a 10/10 perfect score, based on their smell, uniqueness, and "airy factor" for me, with the third one being an exception.

1. Creed Aventus (2010-2013 era). Funny enough, Aventos (intentional spelling) translates to "with the wind".
2. Straight to Heaven (Any year, though the older are better and have an animalic kick which the newer lack). I think a lot of snobs like to hate on this one, but I love it. This is my signature scent.

3. Juniper Sling (Personally, I think Juniper Sling is widely regarded as a wimp by most of the enthusiast community, but it fits the "ride in the air" test well). To my nose, there is a smokey aspect of Juniper Sling which is a shadow of Creed's Aventus. But simply, it's very complex without putting on any posh act, and I would guess that its composition is rather simple.

4. 4160 Tuesdays Eau My Soul - In my eyes, this perfume is one of the best easy wearing sweet oriental spicy perfumes, without being overbearing. I think it has a shadow of O'Hira and Jubilation Man by Amouage in it, but those are way too heavy and lack the class of EMS. Luca Turin had the audacity to give Eau My Soul 4/5 stars. I think it deserved a fifth.
5. Santal 26 (the candle) I think this sweeter cousin of Pickle 33 is the best iteration because of how it rides in the air and it is not as blatant as its popular NYC cousin.



My introduction to Aventus was some time in 2011 where my closest friend had a bottle and I smelled it. It smelled sharp, piney, smokey, fruity. I was enthralled, but I was a mere college student with <10k CAD in savings. From there, I was reunited with Aventus in 2015 when I flew to meet a friend from my back home in a western Canadian city. He wore a 2012 batch of Aventus and it was that same WOW. In 2017 I managed to get a bottle of 2016 Aventus from Costco and it was underwhelming, it smelled completely different. It lacked the smoke, pine, airy sweetness of the Aventus I knew.

While a plethora of people consider Birch to be the note to blame, I believe a lot was removed and replaced from Aventus. the 2010-2013 Aventus samples and bottles that I ended up acquiring contain a distinct sweetness within the smokeyness and I refuse to believe just Birch was removed.

So now, many years after my first encounter with Aventus, I have begun my journey to chemically reconstruct every player in the Aventus formula to the best of my ability. With the help of a chemist I have run a positive and negative ion LCMS of Aventus. but because we are dealing with perfume the friend has also conducted a UV scan of the juice to discern the lipophilicity and hydrophilicity of the composition.

From this point, I am going to scan online for reliable posts and people to find a list of molecule candidates for Aventus, to slowly fit my jigsaw puzzle and buy small amounts of each molecule to also run an LCMS on.
I may end up purchasing some completed analyses, but those are typically only available for post 2014 batches, which would solve some of the puzzle, but not all.

I will use the reply to this as a sort of data warehouse for all molecules I find. Of course, any help is appreciated, but I am doing this more for my own passion and as a "project".

https://imgur.com/r4Smu0D

 

[pkiler]

The entire issue with Aventus, is that because Creed was not owned by a Perfumer, but business owners instead, (the Creeds running the place were never Perfumers), they got a real perfumer to make the first Aventus, then continuously shopped different compounders to get the absolutely cheapest price possible, and they changed compounders so many times... batches were/are wildly different, because they use different companies to compound Aventus, and likely all the rest of the Creed line.

So, you just have to aim at one of them...

 

[ts4r]

The entire issue with Aventus, is that because Creed was not owned by a Perfumer, but business owners instead, (the Creeds running the place were never Perfumers), they got a real perfumer to make the first Aventus, then continuously shopped different compounders to get the absolutely cheapest price possible, and they changed compounders so many times... batches were/are wildly different, because they use different companies to compound Aventus, and likely all the rest of the Creed line.

So, you just have to aim at one of them...

Thanks Paul, I understand, but to my nose, Aventus was hardly changed if at all (from all of the the 2010-2012 samples I own, with some noticeable changes to the citrus note quality and "ripeness" in 2013 batches).

It's so dishonest to their customer for Creed to change their compounder w/o disclosure. I wonder how JH (or whoever is the actual perfumer) feels about what's been done to the scent! It's like the scene from Godfather... "look how they massacred my boy!"

So this older year bottle/batch be my focus.

One of the things I'm finding off the bat, and what I'm doing right now is making an excel sheet of EO constituents I might believe to be within the EOs within Aventus. Limonene, pinene derivatives, linalyl acetate, linalool, citropen, terpinenes etc...

I can then split off a chunk of my analysis b/n natural & synthetic & others. I can then re-visit the EOs via multiple iterations. (Of course, this is just rough drafts / ideas for approaching this for now).

What do you think of this? to me these older bottles smell incredibly natural.

Also (to my nose) I don't smell any dihydromercanol, which I do smell in SMW, GIT, MI.

I may e-mail you sometime after I get deeper and pay for consultancy.

 

[parker25mv]

From another professional perfumer:
"In Aventus, the opening is a clean bergamot note accented with green apple, pineapple and fruity cassis leaves. Modern molecules like Dynascone and Galbascone have an odour profile that hovers between the cool greenness of natural galbanum resin and unripe pineapple. You will find this cool-green fruity effect in Aventus. Pink pepper is an invigorating spice that gives way to a subtle floral heart of jasmine. The woody notes dominating the base are patchouli, which smells earthy, grounded and virile; tempered with a hint of birch wood. It’s not birch tar, which smells overtly smokey and leathery. Birch wood smells like fresh-cut blonde timber. It’s green, sappy and smells like a Finnish sauna. The other hero note is what Creed describes as Ambergris. Here I suspect a synthetic molecule like Ambroxan is doing most of the heavy lifting in the formula. Creed is known for using a custom, house-blended ambergris tincture in its fragrances. Natural ambergris is a fairly subdued odour, which to my nose would struggle to be noticed beside many of the modern synthetic ambergris molecules that are more extroverted. In Aventus, this ambergris note is diffusive and gives the fragrance a lovely sea breeze effect in the dry down. Paired with modern musks, the combination of patchouli and birch wood, and a halo of citrus and fruit from the opening, Aventus’ dry down has a unique signature that is instantly recognisable."

Whatmenshouldsmelllike.com

 

[XerxesXIII]

@ts4r
Wow this is great. You should update us as well with your research!
Since we're talking about Aventus, what batch did you try and what do you think smells the best for you?

 

[Casper_grassy]

The entire issue with Aventus, is that because Creed was not owned by a Perfumer, but business owners instead, (the Creeds running the place were never Perfumers), they got a real perfumer to make the first Aventus, then continuously shopped different compounders to get the absolutely cheapest price possible, and they changed compounders so many times... batches were/are wildly different, because they use different companies to compound Aventus, and likely all the rest of the Creed line.

So, you just have to aim at one of them...

I actually just finished reading the ghost perfumer, assuming it’s all facts you need to replace “got a perfumer” with “walked in pierre bourdons office and took a throwaway from a failed brief”. Assuming it’s facts.

 

[Lucofborg]

I actually just finished reading the ghost perfumer, assuming it’s all facts you need to replace “got a perfumer” with “walked in pierre bourdons office and took a throwaway from a failed brief”. Assuming it’s facts.

Thanks for mentioning The Ghost Perfumer, it's free on Kindle amazon. Will be looking forward to reading it.