These days, if your make-up turns up on your doorstep, it’s because you’ve ordered it online. Gone are the times when a smiling, scented Avon lady would ring your bell, carrying a bag full of powders, lipsticks and eye shadows for you to peruse in the comfort of your own home.
Or are they? Amid fears that the economic impact of Covid-19 would be ‘disproportionately felt by women’, Avon has revealed it’s seen a 114 per cent surge in the number of new representatives joining its UK arm since lockdown began.
Avon was founded in America in 1886 by David McConnell, a travelling book salesman who discovered the women who typically answered the door while their husbands were at work were more interested in the free perfume samples he offered than his books.
Gone are the times when a smiling, scented Avon lady would ring your bell, carrying a bag full of powders, lipsticks and eye shadows for you to peruse in the comfort of your own home. Pictured: An Avon lady on the cover of a 1960s catalogue
Realising he was on to a largely untapped customer base, McConnell recruited women — an even larger untapped workforce — to act as sales agents. It was a winning concept.
In 1959, Avon launched in the UK with the catchphrase ‘Ding dong, Avon calling!’, quickly capturing the hearts of middle-class housewives thrilled to be able to combine work with raising a family children.
Meanwhile, with the austerity of the war years fading, the arrival of an Avon lady provided a frisson of excitement in often humdrum lives, with perfumes and talcs among the most popular products first sold. By 1969 there were 50,000 Avon ladies.
Today the power of its products has endured; one of its lipsticks sells every 20 seconds.
So will you be opening the door to the Avon lady once again? Here our writers share their memories of those nostalgic days . . .
Amid fears that the economic impact of Covid-19 would be ‘disproportionately felt by women’, Avon has revealed it’s seen a 114 per cent surge in the number of new representatives joining its UK arm since lockdown began. Pictured: A vintage Avon promotion
VISITOR WHO WAS AS IMPORTANT AS MILKMAN
Throughout my childhood in the 1960s and 70s, one Saturday a month was Avon Saturday, writes Mandy Appleyard (pictured)
by Mandy Appleyard
Sunana tanning lotion in a bright-yellow banana-shaped bottle; Kwick Tan bronzing lotion; Unforgettable talcum powder in a pink tin — the Avon lady would arrive at our front door clutching delicious-smelling paper bags full of some of the most beautiful scents of my childhood.
She wore baby-pink lipstick and a tangerine-orange mini skirt, her bobbed blonde hair curled up at the bottom. She was an impossibly glamorous figure in the Yorkshire backwater where we lived — a beauty queen bearing luxury gifts.
Throughout my childhood in the 1960s and 70s, one Saturday a month was Avon Saturday, when Yvonne would turn up with whatever my mum had ordered from the catalogue the previous week.
Like millions of other young women in Britain, my first taste of the world of beauty products came courtesy of Avon.
As teenagers, my sister and I pored over the Avon catalogue and its smorgasbord of goodies: make-up we weren’t even allowed to wear yet; smells for bath-time, perfumes with evocative names like Come Summer and Sweet Honesty.
Avon was as much a part of my childhood as the milkman, the ice-cream van and the butcher’s delivery boy — a neighbourhood institution prized by many at a time when the personal touch still mattered.
One memory stands out. For my 12th birthday, my mother bought me my first ever perfume, a small green pot of lavender-scented cream with a purple twist lid modelled like a sheaf of lavender. I dabbed the perfume on my wrists and neck and had never felt more grown-up.
Eventually, when I was allowed to wear make-up, what I didn’t buy at the local Woolworths with my meagre pocket money arrived via my mum’s Avon order: a turquoise cream eye shadow; a cobalt-blue mascara; a powder blusher in a shade called ‘Pretty as a Peach’.
Like being taught to make an apple crumble or how to knit a scarf, Avon was one of the mother-daughter bonds of my youth.
Decades on, Mum still uses their night and day Anew face creams, their lipsticks (which she swears are the best on the market) and their Black Suede talc.
When the Covid lockdown came in March, once again we were glad of Avon in our lives, waiting for our delivery of everything from sanitising handwash to talc.
Avon may seem old hat to a generation of women raised on Mac and Benefit, but it’s still one of the longest-running beauty and cosmetics brands in the world. And for Mum and me, now as then, it’s not just a corporate entity. We grew up with it, and so it has earned a place in our hearts.
I’D LOVE AVON LADY TO CALL ON ME
Avon gave housewives a new way of earning cash when it was hard to find a job to fit round the family, writes Shirley Conran
by Shirley Conran
In 1968, I was the founding editor of Femail. Our focus was on empowering women in small, encouraging ways — and in big ways too, like backing Equal Pay.
I went on to write Superwoman, which was also about empowering women by helping them to reduce household management, leaving them time to do other things.
The way I see it, Avon offered similar opportunities. After all, it gave housewives a new way of earning cash when it was hard to find a job to fit round the family.
Fast forward 52 years to lockdown when many uncomplaining women had more work heaped upon them — home-schooling children, caring for elderly parents and a possibly depressed husband. And for months they did their valiant best to keep the family cheerful.
It is predicted that the economic impact of coronavirus will be disproportionately felt by women. So it is good to hear of one situation where women are profiting: the number signing up as Avon cosmetics sales representatives. And these new representatives will earn 20 per cent of what they sell from the first £1 — instead of having to log orders of £90 before earning a penny, as they used to.
Another advantage offered by Avon to people who live alone, like me, is having a visitor who is interested in you. Avon, please send me a brochure, a price list and tell me who to telephone for a visit.
Although much of their selling is done online, some reps still call on customers and I imagine it’s this personal touch people love.
I don’t expect someone as exquisitely made up as those frightening young women behind the big store cosmetic counters; I expect someone kind who will feel comfortable in my kitchen and who will help me improve my appearance.
While I haven’t been reduced to daytime pyjamas, I know that looking better will improve my coronavirus-battered morale.
And this new job will help the morale of the Avon ladies, too — it will improve their self-confidence by encouraging them to learn the art of talking cheerfully to strangers. Something many of us could benefit from.
IT EASED TEDIUM OF MUM’S HOUSEWORK
For a year in 1965, I became intimately acquainted with Avon after my mother became one of the army of Avon ladies, writes Jenni Murray
by Jenni Murray
For a year in 1965, I became intimately acquainted with Avon after my mother became one of the army of Avon ladies. After some training in the arts of selling from Auntie Mary who ran a beauty salon, she filled the spare bedroom with her products, before moving from door to door to sell to her ‘clients’ — most of whom became good friends.
Every few weeks she held tea parties to show off her wares, for which I was co-opted as her assistant.
I made the tea, handed round the home-made buns and biscuits she’d spent all morning baking, and allowed myself to be used as a model, bored out of my brain as she rubbed moisturisers into my face to show how youthful they could make you look.
It was ridiculous, really, because my skin was already that of a flawless 15 year old.
The few pounds we made every week contributed to my pocket money, it kept Mum busy and doubtless eased the tedium of being a housewife.
I was not a fan though, being a dedicated user of everything Mary Quant. How much more engaged I would have been if only she’d sold those products.
I pushed my pram with all my Avon goodies in the basket underneath
From touting talc to selling eyebrow tattoos online, three generations of women tell how they came to be Avon Ladies.
Sylvia Riley, 86, a mother of three from Yateley, Hants, was an Avon Lady from 1970-1971
I LOVED THE FREEDOM, MY HUSBAND WASN’T KEEN
Sylvia Riley, 86, a mother of three from Yateley, Hants, was an Avon Lady from 1970-1971. She says:
Back in 1970 Avon wasn’t well known, and I didn’t even wear make-up. But, having recently had my third baby, I applied after seeing an advert in Woman’s Own magazine because I liked the idea of having an interest outside the home.
My area rep was Miss Knott, an austere 50-something who used to crack the whip if she thought I could have done better.
My patch was my old neighbourhood in Crowthorne, Berkshire, and I’d push my pram, with my baby in it, around the streets three times a week with the products in the basket underneath, while my two oldest were at school. I’d announce myself by saying: ‘You will have seen us in the Woman’s Own magazine.’
Skincare and talc were the bestsellers and even though customers faced a four-week wait, products were easy to sell. Most women were at home and a good bus ride away from the shops. All the customers were exceedingly nice — back then we didn’t have lots of cold-callers. I earned around 10 shillings a month, which was lot of money then.
Not that my husband was happy about it — he felt inadequate that his wife was out earning money, until he realised how happy it made me. I stopped after 18 months, when my baby would no longer sit comfortably in the pram, but to this day I still buy Avon.
YOUNG 80s MUMS LOVED MY BLUE MASCARA
Sheila Eagle, 58, from Diss, Norfolk, started as an Avon Lady in 1986
Sheila Eagle, 58, from Diss, Norfolk, started as an Avon Lady in 1986. She says:
When my four children were young, and I was unable to work full-time, I worked for Avon as a way to meet new people as much as make money.
I didn’t make friends as such, but there was one lady — a new mum like me — who I’d stop by and have a glass of wine with in the evening. My experiences as a rep varied hugely. In the Eighties my patch was one long road in Epsom, Surrey, which I’d walk my toddlers down. Customers liked the personal attention and convenience. Most were young mums who bought a lot of suntan lotion and blue mascara. I earned around £20 a month working one or two mornings a week.
By the time I had my second stint as an Avon Lady in 2005, the social landscape had changed. I realised most mums now worked during the day, so I had to knock doors at 7pm. But I earned more — around £60 a month.
Despite the rise of online shopping people still liked the personal touch, but I’d leave most orders in a bag behind a plant pot, which was convenient but, in a way, quite sad.
CLIENTS LIKE TO HAVE A CHAT ON THE DOORSTEP
Natalie Martinelli, 38, is a full-time mother and has been an Avon lady for ten years
Natalie Martinelli, 38, is a full-time mother and has been an Avon lady for ten years. She says:
Although lots of Avon ladies focus their work online, I’ve always preferred the door-to-door approach. Most of my clients are school mums or older people who prefer to browse through a catalogue. I started doing Avon when I was pregnant with my first son. I don’t work on it full-time and at the moment only make around £50 a month. However, lockdown has seen my sales go up.
People ask me why they should order from an Avon lady when they could go online. First of all, you don’t have to wait in for an order. I text my customers and call round when they’re in. They can return the goods to me if they don’t like them, and there’s no minimum spend. Plus, people like a chat on the doorstep. Several of my clients are older and they like the personal touch.
My most popular products are the Skin So Soft Oil spray and traditional items like bubble bath.
Now, of course, I’m seeing a lot more sales of antibacterial hand wash, gel and face coverings. But I enjoy it and hope that I can build up my career when the boys are older.