Peak Zone
Avon (2002)

Avon dabbled in aquatic aesthetics but never really tried to make them in earnest until the 2000's. Everyone wanted the next Cool Water (1988) and it was only because Avon was going through a nutty period of creative waywardness that they didn't flood the market with them like everyone else did. Instead, Avon would wait until the "second wave" aquatic boom spearheaded by stuff like Polo Blue (2002) to really sling out the blue juices to their unsuspecting catalog customers. Folks who follow Avon history will know that 1999-2011 was a period of expansion and creative renaissance for the company, which didn't ultimately lead to sales and caused them to implode and retreat from the US as their primary market afterward, but that's not what this review is about. Avon was releasing an obscene amount of new product every year in the 2000's even by their old standards of one or two new releases a year, and by the time Avon Peak Zone (2002) emerged, Avon was introducing sometimes close to a half-dozen new scents for men alone (let alone their larger women's selections). Peak Zone was therefore lost in the fray before it ever had a chance to really prove itself as Avon's first original bog-standard aquatic. Avon Coastline (2001) did predate this, but was effectively a clone of Armani Acqua di Giò pour Homme (1996), so Peak Zone was the first aquatic Avon made that didn't smell like anything else.

The scent itself built on a dry citrus, aqueous floral, and musks foundation that would later power other 2000's Avon aquatics, but had it's own sort of juicy top note that blended differently with the rest of the notes, and was quite a bit more green overall than its later cousins. Peak Zone opens with grapefruit, bergamot, some soft mint, and dihydromyrcenol bolstering the opening as can be expected. The middle of eucalyptus, violet, hedione, and cyclamen is a transition to the cedar, sandalwood, white musk, and vetiver base that would be standard issue in Avon aquatics like Avon Blue Rush (2005) or Avon Interact (2006). It goes on dry, stays cool, gets a little warmer into the dry down, then finishes crisp and green, with a juice that isn't -entirely- blue to give away that it isn't just another Cool Water clone. Avon was fond of introducing house amber and peppercorn to it's later aquatics, so this is an interesting amber-free twist that remains lighter and almost more floral and feminine if not for the betraying base that asserts dry woody masculinity in the later stages of the wear. This base would also be re-used in a lot of Avon aquatics, and was also in the orange-centric Avon RPM (2002), so what you're really paying for here is a unique variation on the top and heart placed over said base. Peak Zone smells like something that would be best used during workouts, outdoor adventures, and day-running, lasting about six hours but projecting through most of it.

Peak Zone lasted all of 2 years in the catalogs, and was only released in the US market, making it more rare than most released at this time but not as rare as the "single campaign" scent Coastline. Peak Zone is definitely no unicorn in the realm of vintage fragrance, but I can't recommend it considering others from the period that are easier to come by, despite being quite good for what it is. The only thing close to this is the also-discontinued Izod by Izod (2008), which is going to push three figures because it was popular before it got axed, so if you -really- want this kind of dry citrus/mint/woods/musk synthetic accord, this might be the cheaper alternative after all. Another thing to consider is the existence of Versace Man Eau Fraîche (2006), which is the apex of 2000's aquatic style and gets you to the "peak" a lot easier than this can, plus is actually cheaper at discount prices because it's more common. Peak Zone is another example of Avon doing things just a tad differently than everyone else in the 2000's, and it's a damn shame all their efforts didn't pay off, but after 2 decades of floundering, no amount of forward-thinking could bounce them back. So, in that sort of legacy perspective, Peak Zone was a success after all, in spite of it's budget-bin design. Maybe this was a spiritual successor to Avon Seazone (1992) and the proper aquatic it was meant to be? Who knows, but Peak Zone really isn't peak anything, and more like just a beginning of exploring a movement Avon was fashionably late to, as always. Thumbs up.