BAUM: Shiseido’s Creation of the Brand and a Tree-Inspired Approach to Fragrance and Containers

Something I picked up because I wanted to use it turned out to be sustainable!
Ayami Nishiwaki

Touching components that retain their wood grain and welcoming forest-like fragrances into daily life: BAUM set out to make products whose tactile and olfactory appeal would also encourage people to appreciate their environmental considerations.

Launched by Shiseido in June 2020, BAUM centers on the idea of “coexistence with trees.” Rather than simply decorating containers with wood, it makes use of materials left over from furniture production; in fragrance, it widens its perspective from a single tree to the landscape of an entire forest. Here, we trace the new form of richness envisioned by brand founder Ayami Nishiwaki and the people responsible for design, engineering, and woodworking.

Key Information
The Founders and the Origins of the Brand
The Brand’s Commitments
References

Key Information

Brand name: BAUM
Launched: June 2020
Founding and operating company: Shiseido (Japan)
Key figure in its launch: Ayami Nishiwaki (Brand Manager)
Brand name: The German word for “tree”
Official website: BAUM

The Founders and the Origins of the Brand

Ayami Nishiwaki’s Reconsideration of Richness for the Future

BAUM was born as Shiseido’s new skin-and-mind brand. Ayami Nishiwaki, who led its launch, graduated from Keio University, worked at a foreign investment bank and a strategy consulting firm, and then worked in cosmetics marketing at L’Oréal Japan. She joined Shiseido in 2016 and took part in establishing the new brand from its Corporate Strategy Department.

Nishiwaki began by asking what kind of “richness” was appropriate for products in a higher price category. Alongside the satisfaction of owning and consuming things, some people value mental fulfillment and a sense that their choices connect them to society. She conceived a brand that would respond to that shift.

Trees became the chosen motif: familiar presences in people’s lives that grow over time and pass resources on to the next generation. The aim was to make environmental consideration something people could feel through a familiar material, rather than leaving it as an abstract phrase. The accumulation of growth rings, through which time becomes value, also informed the choice of the name BAUM, the German word for tree.

Making Wooden Containers a Reality through Collaboration Inside and Outside the Company

It took about three years from conception to launch. Incorporating wood into cosmetics packaging required consideration not only of appearance but also of material sourcing, hygiene management, and the precision needed in a container. Nishiwaki and her colleagues considered timber from forest thinning, among other options, but finding material of the required quality was not easy.

The turning point came through collaboration with the wooden-furniture manufacturer Karimoku. The material adopted was small offcuts generated during furniture production. Timber cut in forest thinning and offcuts left over from furniture making arise at different stages. BAUM gave a new purpose to the latter.

Midori Yamada was responsible for container design on the brand’s side. Rather than making the strong statement often associated with cosmetics, she aimed for the presence of an interior object that would fit naturally into a home. Wataru Kumano, whose work included furniture and wooden products, joined the product-design effort. Drawing on his knowledge of wood’s properties, he developed the design with Yamada.

Motoki Okoshi, meanwhile, supported the practical realization of the containers as Shiseido’s packaging engineer. Karimoku manufactured the wooden components, with factory and quality-control staff also contributing. Specialists brought together their work in defining the concept, drawing the form, and turning it into a usable container.

The Brand Launches in June 2020 after a Delay

BAUM initially announced a launch date of May 30, 2020, but began in June after a postponement. This was a period when the spread of COVID-19 also led to the cancellation of planned presentations and events. Alongside skincare, eaux de cologne and products for scenting rooms offered moments that evoked contact with a forest at home.

Rather than simply applying products to the skin, the idea was to prepare the atmosphere with candles or room sprays before beginning skincare. Inspired by the aromas of trees, “skin and mind care” treated fragrance, touch, and the surrounding space as one experience.

Expanding Perfume and Places for Experience from 2021 Onward

On November 4, 2021, BAUM released FOREST DAWN in limited quantities. It was the brand’s first eau de toilette. Eaux de cologne had already been available, so this was not positioned as its first perfume. The creation depicted the moment a forest awakens through a deep, full-bodied fragrance.

In 2023, the places where people could experience the world of trees also expanded. In addition to packaging, Kumano designed TREEHOUSE, a small wooden house intended to let visitors feel coexistence with trees from inside. At the 2023 Kobe BAL pop-up, its oak frame and display spaces became a setting for experiencing the products.

That same year, BAUM opened its first domestic travel-retail counter at Ginza Mitsukoshi. The overseas industry publication The Moodie Davitt Report covered the development alongside experiences of forest scents and sounds and packaging made from furniture offcuts. Bringing the world of trees into places where fragrances are chosen became part of how BAUM communicated its identity.

Then, on September 10, 2026, three previously limited-edition scents, FOREST DAWN, HINOKI FOREST, and OAK FOREST, became permanent fragrances in the eau de toilette and aromatic hand cream ranges. Forest scenes once offered for a limited time remained as scents to welcome into everyday life.

The Brand’s Commitments

From the Smell of a Single Tree to Compositions Depicting Forest Air

Nishiwaki has said that BAUM’s fragrances were given complexity while remaining centered on natural fragrance materials. Even with cypress and cedarwood at their core, the goal was not to present the material of a tree forcefully on its own.

Rather than expressing the scent of a single material in a straightforward way
Ayami Nishiwaki

Layers of flowers, grasses, and spices bring depth to the trees and the forest. What BAUM seeks to express is not merely the smell of timber, but the air that hangs in a place. The idea of depicting scenes that change with weather and season through layers and lingering impressions of fragrance gives its creations their differences.

FOREST DAWN takes as its subject daybreak in an ancient forest where great, moss-covered trees are rooted. Ginger, olibanum, and nutmeg lead into the depth of cedarwood and amber. Morning mist, moisture, and the warmth of soil rising from the foot of a tree are constructed as the full-bodied air of a forest.

HINOKI FOREST, by contrast, layers fig, violet leaf, and other impressions over different parts of a living hinoki tree: branches and leaves, chips, and trunk. Rather than treating a tree as a single solid mass, the fragrance depicts a walk through a forest with both verdancy and warmth. OAK FOREST focuses on a forest deepening in color and the warmth of its soil, using cardamom, carrot seed, patchouli, and other materials to express a forest renewing itself as the seasons turn.

Although all are woody fragrances, their subjects differ: an old forest at dawn, the breathing of living hinoki, and the earth that nurtures an oak forest. The range develops by refusing to confine the shared idea of coexistence with trees to a single fixed forest image.

Precisely Fitting Wooden Skincare Frames and Refills

The idea of making use of trees also appeared in containers designed for continued use. Skincare products required a wooden frame that expands and contracts with temperature and humidity to be combined with a plastic refill. It had to be easy to remove while also fitting securely. Achieving both was a challenge for the packaging design.

Okoshi and his colleagues considered adding cushioning materials or small stoppers, but aimed for a simple construction using only the wooden frame and bottle. They adjusted shapes and clearances around areas such as the neck in fractions of a millimeter. These refinements concerned replaceable skincare containers; they were not a refill structure shared by every perfume.

BAUM’s containers are made to the same quality as Karimoku’s furniture.
Wataru Kumano

This is how Kumano describes the techniques used to make precise wooden components. At Karimoku’s factory, small offcuts are joined into shapes, polished, and finished. Furniture-making materials and processing techniques are carried over into containers held in the hand. Differences in grain and color also help users develop an attachment to their own particular piece.

Thinking of Perfume as an Object to Display in a Room

For FOREST DAWN in 2021, BAUM used walnut for its wooden components for the first time. The combination of geometric glass and wood was intended to work as an object that could be displayed in a living room or elsewhere even when the perfume was not being used. After the time spent wearing the fragrance ends, a point of contact with the material remains in the room.

In its original specifications, the wooden components reused small pieces of timber generated by Karimoku’s furniture production, the main body used recycled glass, and the outer box used FSC-certified paper. The beauty of the appearance and the choice of materials were considered together in the perfume bottle as well.

The 90.0% natural-origin index stated for FOREST DAWN is a figure for the product calculated according to ISO 16128, including water. It does not mean that 90% of its fragrance materials are natural. Treating a fragrance’s subject, its composition, and the product’s natural-origin index as separate kinds of information gives a more concrete understanding of BAUM’s approach to making products.