I think the best series of flankers going has been the Thierry Mugler A*Men Pure series. Starting in 2008 with A*Men Pure Coffee it was followed by Pure Malt and Pure Havane. These fragrances have been wildly successful as they took coffee, malt whiskey, and tobacco and used them to illuminate different facets of the classic A*Men architecture. I have found all three of the A*Men Pure fragrances immensely satisfying to wear; they are bold perfumed statements.

The fourth entry is out and it is called A*Men Pure Shot and the name and the A*Men base is where the similarity ends. If there is Thierry Mugler DNA in play here A*Men Pure Shot is closer in style to an earlier fragrance called Ice*Men. Ice*Men seemed to want to be a sport version of A*Men and it never really succeeded in that endeavor in my opinion. A*Men Pure Shot seems like a second bite of the sport scent apple and this time I think they do succeed.

The ad campaign is centered on Oscar Pistorius a multiple gold medal winner in the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens. He has qualified for this summer’s 2012 Olympic Games in London and will be one of the featured personalities of these Games. He has been called the “fastest person on no legs” and his athleticism is unquestioned. It is just one more added part of why A*Men Pure Shot feels like a sport fragrance.

There is one other similarity to the other A*Men Pure series and that is the participation of perfumer Jacques Huclier. M Huclier, as the original creator of A*Men, seems to have a supernatural understanding of the patchouli base which lets you know you’re in A*Men land. It should also be noted he was the perfumer behind Ice*Men and so it is a second chance for him too.     

A*Men Pure Shot starts with that clean opening so prevalent in the sport scent segment. A bit of spearmint and a much more pronounced juniper accord. This is all combined with a redwood note which has a lot in common with the clean lines of cedar. At this point I would have been hard pressed to identify this as a Thierry Mugler fragrance. That begins to change as a clean white musk carries the heart straight to the woody patchouli A*Men base. With all of the high notes in the opening two thirds of Pure Shot M Huclier downgraded the chocolate aspect of the A*Men base and so it is wood and patchouli which hold the foreground. By the end it is closer to A*Men than it was in the beginning.

A*Men Pure Shot has average longevity and average sillage. For those used to the 24 hour longevity and sillage of the other A*Men fragrances this will come as a surprise. As a sport scent I believe the longevity is by design.

It almost seems like a perfume oxymoron to describe a fragrance as “A*Men Sport”. What is even more confounding is that this seemingly unwieldy description works very well on my skin. I like this cleaner fresher version of A*Men. I also appreciate that it doesn’t last forever as sometimes I just want a taste of A*Men and this delivers that. A*Men Pure Shot might just be the fastest sport fragrance on no legs. It is definitely an A*Men you can easily contemplate wearing in the heat of summer and I expect I will be.

Disclosure: This review was based on a bottle provided by Thierry Mugler.

–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor