Avon

A perfume sold with books

David H. McConnell went door to door selling books and offered his customers a rose perfume of his own making. The books soon became a pretext for the perfume, and he gave up the book trade in 1886 to open his business in Manhattan.

The company took the name California Perfume Company, suggested by an associate living in California for the abundance of its flowers, and built its first laboratory in Suffern, in the state of New York, in 1897. Persis Foster Eames Albee was the first representative.

Direct sales as a model

Avon recruited women as representatives at a time when they did not have the right to vote in the United States, and gave them an income of their own. The model carried the brand into dozens of countries, with the catalog as its only shelf.

Perfume remains at the center of the offering, alongside makeup and skincare, at mass market prices. From its beginnings, the house has kept a calling as a mass market perfumer rather than a selective house.

Split, sold, handed over for a pound

Avon split in two in 2016: Avon Products for international markets, New Avon for North America, the latter bought by LG H&H in 2019. Natura &Co took over the international half in January 2020.

Avon Products filed for bankruptcy in the United States in August 2024, under the weight of talc-related litigation. Natura sold Avon International — Europe, Africa, Asia, excluding Russia — to the American fund Regent LP on December 31, 2025, for a symbolic pound, while keeping the brand and the Latin American operations.