We just have to hear "Ding dong, Avon calling!" to be immediately whisked back to 60s and 70s, watching our mums pour over the red lipsticks and face creams seductively retrieved from the Avon lady’s bag onto the kitchen table. We have our rose-coloured retro-specs on, but you know where we’re coming from.
Much like Tupperware parties (another thing we get all nostalgic about) the house-calling Avon Ladies offered a great service to women stuck in the middle of nowhere with a need for glamour. It’s easy to forget just how deprived we were a few decades ago in terms of retail, now that we can get twenty shades of red lipstick from our corner Tesco store.
We thought Avon had disappeared but far from it, the company is celebrating its 50th birthday this year and is now the world’s largest direct supplier of well priced beauty goods. It is also a supporter of the fight against breast cancer, in fact it is the biggest global corporate supporter of the breast cancer cause having raised $585 million.
Avon UK has raised £15 million since 1992 for breat cancer charites, which goes towards funding 4 research Dr Avons who are helping to find a cure. Much of that money is raised through this little jewelled lapel pin and to celebrate being 50 and for Breast Cancer Aware month (which isn’t actually until October, but we’re SO ahead of things here, and anyway every month should be breast cancer aware month really, shouldn’t it?) Avon has teamed up with one of our favourite Women’s Room designers, Betty Jackson.
In designing the new pin Ms Jackson states that she knows so many friends who have had or are fighting the disease that it seemed a natural fit for her to support this. As we get older the spectre of ill health lurks menacingly in all our backgrounds and we all know someone touched by this awful cancer monster. So the pin seems a good thing to buy and it’s only £1.50 for goodness sake.
If you don’t have an Avon lady calling regularly, you can go online and check out the breast cancer crusade to buy your pin. While you are there, you might like to purchase the brand’s best selling and longest lasting product, Skin So Soft, which was introduced in 1961 and is still going strong. It is undergoing a half century revamp in July and we are informed by the nice ladies at Avon that it is worth looking out for the Skin So Soft ultra moisturising body lotion at £4.00, although we fancy the Soft and fresh dry oil body spray at £5.00, which we've just ordered, along with our pin, we’ll let you know what we think when we’ve tried it.
The Betty Jackson designed pin to celebrate breast cancer awareness with Avon
