If you’re of a certain age you likely knew an Avon lady whether that was your grandma or your neighbor. Lets talk about the history of Avon perfumes.

In this case history is a cruel mistress and despite being an overwhelmingly woman focused company, it was founded by a man in 1886 and didn’t have its first female CEO until 1999 – over a hundred years later. I digress.

David H McConnell was a traveling book salesman in New York. In order to get people to listen to his pitch, he would offer a free gift – which in this case was a simple perfume. As he traveled door to door, his clientele was largely housewives, late 1800s remember.

The customers were more interested in the free perfume than the books so he saw an opportunity. He and his wife Lucy studied scent extraction as well as French perfume making and launched a new line of scents under the name California Perfume Company. Why California if he lived in New York?

He wanted people to think of fragrant flowers. The first perfumes came in a set called Little Dot Perfume Scent and there were 5 fragrances in total – White Rose, Heliotrope, Violet, Hyacinth, and Lily of the Valley.

The scents did well but it occurred to McConnell that he would have stronger sales if a woman were to sell the fragrances. When he had been a traveling book salesman, he had a sales associate named Mrs. Persis Foster Eames Albee who had been his top seller. He brought her on board the California Perfume Company, gave her a suitcase of samples and sent her out door to door.

It was a hit and more importantly, she convinced more women to join ranks. This format is what we would call an MLM today but at the time this was a legit way that women could make money independently, they didn’t even have the right to vote at this point.

The product line expanded to include all manner of toiletry products for men and women. McConnell began producing a catalog that featured more than 100 products. By the 1920s, McConnell felt that the company had outgrown the name California so in 1928 he changed it to Avon after the birthplace of Shakespeare – remember he did get his start as a book sales man. The name change was official in 1939.

Stay tuned for part 2 coming soon!