Mother Love and Avon
One of the most ubiquitously collected things in the twentieth century by American middle class folks has to be the humble Avon bottle. I’d wager a guess that certain generations of us* all remember our mother’s dressers or shelves filled with their often whimsical bottles. I am amongst them. Across the years and over multiple moves, my own mother has lost or broken most of hers. However, there was one in particular that was my favorite to steal away with and play with when I was little, and she recently gave it to me.
Meet the “Emerald Prince.” His eyes don’t shine so blue anymore, and his body is emptied of elixir. But to a little girl with a storytelling imagination some many odd years ago, he was magic. I’d play with him and Barbie. But we were too poor for me to have more than the one Barbie, and in fact my doll was actually a gift from my mom’s friend. We certainly couldn’t afford a Ken to play with, so Barbie would kiss the frog… and he’d remain a frog. But he was a magic frog nonetheless, even if he couldn’t transmute into a human prince.
My mother has retained only two of her old perfume bottles, neither of which are Avon. I believe the pink one used to hold Anais Anais, which my father gifted to her. He bought it in the mid-eighties, right around the time my mom was having my sister because he wanted to get her something special. An atomizer bottle sure seemed fancy! Heh.
The other is not technically hers. It was a gift she got for her mother, thinking that a glass lamp-shaped bottle with a plastic shade painted silver on top was perfect. Who knows what sort of juice it held inside. Ma can’t remember, except that she swears up and down that when she got older she realized it was one of the worst things she’s ever smelled in her life. But at the time she was all of eleven years old, and she wanted to get the most special thing she could afford for her mom. The old price tag is still stuck to the bottom, even after forty-ish years… Thirty-eight cents at Woolworth’s. Thirty-eight cents worth of frivolity probably seemed like glamor in the mind of a earnest kid who was raised without many luxuries. My mom grew up not wearing shoes in the summer frequently, not just because it was hot and children like running barefoot. My grandparents were hard up and couldn’t afford more than one pair of shoes for the kids. She grew up using an outhouse for part of her childhood, despite the prevalance of indoor plumbing, because they simply had to make due with the housing they could get. That lamp perfume was a souvenir of love and a comfortable life she wanted for her mom that the family couldn’t quite reach yet.
I have largely eschewed the Avon bottle collecting myself. I’ve never really had the interest in it. And then I saw this and made the leap:
An old “Dachshund” bottle containing their Somewhere cologne.
But who the hell cares WHAT fragrance is in it: I’ve finally found a way to tie together two of my disparate obsessions, perfume and wiener dogs. Now I wouldn’t want to smell like my own dachshund. Fred is always smelling of stinky cheese, his feet tend to take on an air of Fritos corn chips, and there’s this weird spot on the back of his neck that reminds of fudge brownies. All together it’s… well, it’s an interesting aroma, and he’s welcome to keep it. However, a bottle in his likeness makes me weirdly happy. Maybe my boys will end up inheriting their mother’s Avon bottle someday… who knows?
*Hyper link above directs you to a page on Wes Clark’s Avocado Memories, a site I love and revisit every so often to see if he’s got anything new up. If you get bored or have some time to kill, I highly recommend visiting his site. It’s just a hoot!
I’m in love with Fred and his wild smells. Weiner dogs are always fun. My grandparents had Avon bottles around and they never appealed to me, but recently I found a white glass French poodle bottle and a white glass Persian bottle, and I bought them. As for you, they mix my love for animals and my love of perfume. Oh, I just remembered, I also have an older Avon snail bottle filled with Occur! bought for the same reason! Plus, how silly is it to put perfume in a snail, a poodle, and a persian?
minette
26 Jul 06 at 4:48 pm
I love both you, and Fred, you sentimental sot…
Takes one to know one [how puerile is THAT?] !
chayaruchama
26 Jul 06 at 5:00 pm
Heh, Fred sadly smells not so wild so much as a trip through a junk food aisle at the supermarket. It’s weird… you’d think a DOG would smell animalic. I love that you found a poodle and a persian bottle, hehe. A snail, though? Wow, what a really weird choice for Avon. Who on earth really looks at a snail with enthusiasm?
chayaruchama: oh puerility is utterly underrated! And yes, I am a tinge sentimental, but let’s just keep that between us ;)
Scentzilla!
26 Jul 06 at 7:31 pm
Oh, the memories you conjure up for me! How I wish I had all those old bottles — I remember a Santa boot and a parakeet (his head was the cap.) And it turned out that the scent I have been trying to remember for years (decades?) that I loved so much in high school was … you guessed it … an Avon pretending to be “vintage,” in a faux Victorian bottle.
marchlion
27 Jul 06 at 4:45 am
Ha! Fritos. That Fred looks like quite the character.
I’m pretty sure that pink bottle is Anais Anais, because I had one in high school. I don’t know what happened to it. I also used to have some cool miniatures, including the nose-shaped bottle that was Dali perfume. My stepmother had the full-size…these are all gone. :(
greeneyes
27 Jul 06 at 5:46 am
Yes, memories are in the air. I too have been taken back in time recently.
I can’t recall any avon bottles, or any avon fragrance, other than the Gardenia that my grandmother wore. I think it was Avon, but can’t really be sure, I was very young.
I just know that it was Gardenia.
You speak of being poor, but I suspect that you are just talking about money. It appears your riches were wrapped in your mothers love as hers were for her mother. What a beautiful legacy.
Zz
27 Jul 06 at 7:54 am
Great trip down memory lane, K. It is a shame how completely dull most fragrance bottles are these days: most companies could take a tip or two from Avon.
Robin
27 Jul 06 at 8:48 am
Ooooh March, I think I remember a Santa boot shaped one, too! I know my mom had some of those old ‘Victorian’ themed bottles, as well… can’t remember for the life of me what the perfume inside them was, though. What was in yours, I wonder…
greeneyes - thanks, I thought it was AA, but I couldn’t remember exactly, and only dimly recalled it. Too bad the minis are gone, the Dali nose one sounds particularly fun to have :(
zz, yeah, poor money-wise, not in anything else. I am really sure Avon made a Gardenia, so I think you’re right and that was one.
Robin, I am kind of okay with not everyone making such gimmicky bottles. But every once in a while it’s a fun thing to have, yes? I think the girly perfume knick-knacks were so appealing to certain generations of women, and didn’t cost so much as to be out of reach for most ladies. There is something to be said for affordable luxuries :)
Scentzilla!
28 Jul 06 at 2:53 pm
Katie — it was Avon Trailing Arbutus, in the faux-Victorian bottles, ca. 1979, on eBay. I keep getting ready to press the Buy It Now button, but I am so sure it would be the smell of bittersweet disappointment that I stop myself. What do you think? Should I do it?
marchlion
28 Jul 06 at 6:59 pm
If it’s sealed still… maybe? But if not? Then honestly? I might not. So many folks DISPLAYED their Avon bottles and exposed them to sunlight, that I might not… But if you just want the bottle for nostagia’s sake, I’d go for it. If it’s just the juice, I dunno… maybe not. Might be fun, though, who knows? Just to give it a whirl and see if it has retained the ghost…
Scentzilla!
28 Jul 06 at 7:18 pm
Actually, they had several that were NIB, so they haven’t seen a lot of sun, theoretically… I bought one that looked unopened and full. What the heck. (Huh, wonder what Avon juice smells like 25 years later?) I’ll let you know how the walk down memory lane goes.;-)
marchlion
29 Jul 06 at 7:01 am
ach, then I’d go for it. Sounds fun, and like you say, “what the heck.” (My Dachshund’s Somewhere cologne still bears traces of its message, but time has clearly taken its toll.)
Scentzilla!
31 Jul 06 at 4:26 pm
Buon luogo, congratulazioni, il mio amico!
Azzurra
4 Nov 06 at 8:43 pm