Avon Lemon Velvet soaps, c. 1970s

I was 10, an age when the plush animals that perched on my shelves still kept watch against closet monsters. But childhood was starting to drift away. That year, year I pinned my first glossies of Marlon Jackson and Bobby Sherman on my bedroom wall. I became entranced by the boy I sat next to in class who always talked about his guinea pig and made me giggle uncontrollably until Mrs. Brown separated us. I eavesdropped on my babysitter after she thought I had gone to bed as she flirted on the touchtone phone with her latest conquest. I was only a couple of years away from the regulation baby blue eyeshadow, frosted pink lip gloss and platform heels that were the tween uniform of the day, though for now, my dad made it clear makeup was off the table. Still, I was beginning to realize I needed to up my game.

Avon ad featuring Susan Dey, June 1970

So, when dad announced that he had gotten a job at Avon – the fragrant Oz that produced those coiffed Avon ladies and their magical carryalls, full of multicoloured bottles shaped like genii bottles, puppies, and flower bouquets – I figured he had landed the next best gig to manning the entrance at Disneyland or being bus driver for the Jackson Five. Soon, I got regular little booklet catalogues for Avon employees of samples – tiny lipstick tubes of Winter Red and Iced Watermelon, miniature bottles of perfumes, powders, and splashes with romance novel names like Rhapsody, Bird of Paradise, and Moonwind. But the fragrance I yearned for was Lemon Velvet, with its Peter Max-style graphics and implied promise of year-round California sunshine, in atomizer, demistick, or the exotically-named “perfume gelee.”

I remember that first spritz as fresh-cut lemon and baby powder, exactly the way I wanted it. My best friend wore Love’s Baby Soft, and while, of course, I also had a bottle, I secretly preferred citrus scents. Lemon Velvet seemed to bridge the two nicely. In time, I had the entire range of Lemon Velvet products, including the much-coveted “beauty powder” with its fluffy puff and round vanity table box. Lemon Velvet became my first ever signature scent.

 Avon Lemon Velvet Beauty Dust

For all these years since, I’ve been haunted by it, wondering if it would smell as I remembered it. About 10 years ago, I was in a Westhampton thrift shop with my other when I saw an empty canister of Avon Lemon Velvet bath gel. My heart pounded as I unscrewed the top. It was empty. But, as I lowered my head, I caught a ghostly whiff that was unmistakable as the perfume I remembered. A rush of memories flooded back from that time, but they weren’t all happy ones. I put the bottle back on the table and turned away.

A few years ago, curiosity and nostalgia got the upper hand, and I bought a mostly full bottle of Lemon Velvet from an eBay seller. The top notes were damaged and all I got was eau de talcum powder with a few drops of very artificial-smelling lemon. Figuring my bottle had seen better days, I then purchased a full, unopened glass tea kettle of the bath gel in its kitsch Dutch pot. I’m sitting here with it now and recognize it as my childhood love. It smells of lemon rind, powder, plastic, and something a bit herbal. Objectively, it is not a terribly good fragrance. There’s no balance between lemon and powder, and the ingredients come across as rather chemical. But, for my ten-year old self, who wanted to be like the smiling, perfect-skinned, shiny-haired girls that gleamed from my magazines.

Peter Max Love poster, 1971

I don’t open it much now. But when I do, its fragrance flashes images of my ten-year old life like a slide projector. There’s my pink, red and white bedroom with the black light I insisted on over a psychedelic Peter Max poster, my grey and black Tiffany lampshade over the round table at the other end, supervised by a pink dog called Penelope, Lady the enormous ladybug, and Mongy the frog prince. Outside my window is a crabapple tree with puffy blossoms, and next to my bed, my own princess phone. My floor is littered with issues of Seventeen, and, on my little red record player, the Jackson Five is begging me to give them one more chance. My perfume sensibilities may have moved on to rather more sophisticated perfumes, but Lemon Velvet will always have a piece of my Laurie Partridge wannabe heart.

Notes: Lemon, powder, jasmine, vanilla.

Disclaimer: Avon Lemon Velvet from my own collection.

Lauryn Beer, Senior