Interact
Avon (2006)

For me personally, there isn't much distinction between Avon Interact (2006) and Driven by Derek Jeter (2006). There's no empirical evidence to really prove it, but I'd almost say the two are from the same brief, except the one without the celebrity branding is an unused formula variant that didn't make the cut for the one with said branding. I was still taking catalogs at the time this launched, even though I wound down my buying from them in favor of designers, and never recalled seeing Interact in any of the campaigns, yet I did see the Derek Jeter fragrance. This is for all intents and purposes, a non-celebrity branded version of Driven by Derek Jeter, with a few twists in the composition to justify being a different scent. If I am correct, this was probably created for markets where the correlation with the baseball legend would be irrelevant at best or unappealing at worst, so most likely folks in areas far removed or over international borders like Canada had access to this. Unlike Driven, which goes for mad prices now that it's been discontinued (for the second time) and fans of Mr. Jeter are snapping up any memorabilia with his name on it, Interact still remains at or a little above original 2006 MSRP when found on eBay, despite also being discontinued. Interact could very well be a replacement for an empty bottle of Driven, for those who want a comparable scent but not the pesky aftermarket price tag of baseball-related merchandise, but for those who haven't a clue what either fragrance would smell like, here's my review.

Avon Interact starts as a very water aquatic with some yuzu here and peppery accords there. Avon were odd fans of pepper in their fresher scents going back as far as the 60's with Avon Windjammer (1968), so maybe somebody up in HQ loved Windjammer so much they wanted a return of that peppery vibe here. Interact seems to be missing link between something like Iceberg Effusion (2001) and Acqua Di Gio pour Homme (1996) with its blend of pepper and white florals. Avon didn't stray far from the family tree of it's earlier Peak Zone (2002) and Blue Rush (2005) aquatics with using herbs and dry citrus in the opening, with aldehydes and/or mint (both in Interact), plus violet ionones and hedione in the heart, with a slug of fruitiness from calone 1951. Neroli is still quizzically missing from Interact, but maybe Avon didn't want to touch orange blossom in any form because so many other aquatics in the 2000's had it. Whatever the case may be, Interact comes across minty and fresh in the opening like several Avon predecessors, but without a ton of fruit or obvious florals, although the violet here stands out pretty tall alongside the black pepper. From there, Interact gets somewhat Fougère-like just as Driven does, with clary sage and tonka in the base, with Iso E Super woods and white musk to round it off. Absent is any Avon amber like in Blue Rush, or a ton of green notes like galbanum or vetiver, both of which Driven have. Wear time is nice at eight hours and sillage is among the best for Avon's 2000's aquatics, although that really just puts the performance at average outside of this distinction. Best use is for summer in office or casual situations.

I can't justify getting this if you already have Driven, or if you have any of the more interesting aquatics Avon pumped out prior to this, but if you collect the house, then go ahead and snap one of these up. I'm a lot kinder to Avon fragrances than most reviewers because I have an intimate understanding of their target audience and predilections towards simple easy-to-wear fare for men who are on the fence about even using "cologne", so in this regard, I review them with respect to their price point and the creative nightmare that a limited budget cab be to the mostly-anonymous perfumers (some internal, some hired out) making these middle America catch-alls for the blue collar Joe. Sadly, even I can't muster up a lot of enthusiasm for Interact outside of its cool bottle, if only because there is not a single interesting thing outside than that bottle about this fragrance. Having a proper and conventionally-minded men's cash cow aquatic was a plateau of an idea for the house, and soon their aquatics would take on forms nearly indistinguishable from their entry-level designer or drugstore peers, leaving this ultra-sharp and watery-crisp peppry citrus-forward style behind for something with ambroxan and extra "blueness" like all the big boys. So at least in that way, Avon Interact was the last Avon aquatic that really felt like an Avon aquatic, and not just an aquatic that could be from anywhere but carrying the Avon badge. Thumbs up.