Inside the Aveda Aroma Lab #SmellsLikeAveda
You notice it whenever you walk into an Aveda salon, spa or Experience Center: That “Aveda smell.” It’s one of the things you tell us you love most—and that sets us apart from other beauty brands. What you’re actually smelling when you’re smelling Aveda is pure flower and plant essences.
There’s a lot that is involved in creating an Aveda pure-fume™, the art and science of pure flower and plant essences. First of all, we have an in-house Botanical Aroma Lab and specialized perfumers, including Guy Vincent, Aveda Head of Pure-fume™ Aroma and Kate Rosso, Associate of Aveda Pure-fume™ Aroma. “A lot of beauty and even perfume companies don’t have them,” says Kate. “People don’t realize quite how special that is,” she adds. Companies without in-house perfumers must buy their fragrances from fragrance companies—of which there are a limited amount. “Making our aromas ourselves allows us to be very involved in all the different aspects of aroma, from the sourcing of raw materials, to the testing of those ingredients so we can make sure they’re up to our standards.”
Having in-house aroma producing capabilities also allows us to experiment with which aroma best matches each product. Don’t forget, Aveda draws richly from Ayurveda, which relies on the aromatherapeutic properties of plants.
Our aromas are not simplistic (say, a blend of two oils only). And this is due to the creativity of our pure-fumers and the quality of our plant based ingredients. “They smell pure and simple, but they’re very complex—that’s what makes them unique,” says Kate.
How are we able to do this? Practice! Being a pure-fumer is a fine art that requires lots of training. Kate studied chemistry in college—her parents are both scientists—but mid-way through her degree, she realized that being a researcher might not be for her. So after graduating and learning that “perfumery was a thing,” she trained in the art for a year each in France and Italy. Still, when she started at Aveda, it took her about six months before she could produce something that “smelled like Aveda.”
So next time you dip into one of Aveda’s aromas and find yourself sweetly “smelling like Aveda,” know that what you’re wearing is the product not only of high-quality ingredients, but also of highly skilled pure-fumers.
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