Creed Aventus

The formula got 7 upvotes and 4 comments. Those comments are either confused or amused at the idea of it resembling Aventus. Here's a link to the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIYfragrance/comments/y2jtrs/aventus/?utm_source=embedv2&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_content=post_title&embed_host_url=https://basenotes.com/community/threads/creed-aventus-possible-original-2010-formula.561647/ I mean, it is pretty laughable to think that Aventus would have elderflower absolute! Right? The funny thing is, I've recreated this formula in its entirety and been shocked at how well it captures the character of Aventus. In fact, it's a better match for Creed's best-seller than any clone I've ever tried. It's such a neatly organized perfect match using some unconventional ingredients that I personally believe this to be the actual 2010 formula of Aventus. Google finds zero mentions of elderflower and Aventus prior to October 2022. This means the first time some of these ingredients were ever connected to Aventus was through a suspiciously anonymous Reddit post. I've divided the formula into three parts to explain it better. You can combine these parts to get the full formula in 1000 parts. Or copy-paste directly from the linked Reddit post.

Hedione, Iso-E Super, Helvetolide and Ambroxan make up almost 2/3 of the fragrance. The heavy use of Helvetolide here is notable, as it's a musk and thus quite long-lasting. Its diffusive and transparent fruity character allows it to be used at 14% without crushing the fragrance. According to Jean-Christophe Herault in the book "Ghost Perfumer", the combination of Helvetolide with Ambroxan was the birth of Aventus's development process.

Of these naturals, only the patchouli heart is a main player that sticks around for hours. The rest of these naturals mostly modify the opening / mid and create accords that form the core of Aventus's character. Playing around with these naturals in different ratios and combining them with Hedione/Lyral/Ambroxan created many original scents that still registered as very "Creed" to my brain.

As you can see, the world-famous mythical pineapple accord of Aventus is not so grand after all! The opening modifiers that lean towards pineapple only total 0.2% of the formula. This accord does not smell very realistic or even pleasant on its own either. It just works flawlessly with the rest of the composition underneath, modifying it to smell more pineapple-fruity. Using this pineapple accord in other formulas without modifying it would likely not work very well. It may also surprise you how many green ingredients there are, from galbanum to triplal.

Aventus uses captives like Paradisone and Dextro Helvetolide, which in such large doses do impact how it smells in the air. But these captives do not create the character and personality of Aventus. That character is susprisingly dependant on the small doses of various naturals, which have a big impact because their synthetic backdrop is transparent to them. If you try assembling just the main backdrop of Ambrox/Helvetolide/Hedione/Iso-E/Lyral, you'll find that it's so transparent that you can barely perceive it on skin. Yet this backdrop is the part that lasts on skin for hours and is very diffusive in the air. This formula also recreates the black tea leaf -like early middle notes of Aventus exceptionally well. I've tested numerous clones, none of which even attempt to recreate this small nuance I personally love. Turns out it's mainly coming from clary sage oil and elderflower absolute. I suspect Aventus's "IFRA oakmoss removal" circa 2013 to actually be a removal of cistus oil. Omitting cistus (labdanum) from this formula does resemble natural oakmoss removal and makes the end product even more identical to modern Aventus. I suspect modern reformulated Aventus to also have added an ingredient like Tobacalor to modify its style of smokiness. Since whoever published this formula in 2022 obviously wanted people to find it, here it is for you! With a stamp of approval from my personal testing, for whatever that's worth lol. Recreate it, play around with it, make your own versions. Learn what makes the world's most famous men's niche fragrance tick.