Cheap and Cheerful, By Request: 4711, Avon Moonwind and Yardley English Lavender

Well, Amazon for once drew a rabbit out of a hat and and actually got my little bottle of 4711 here 4 days earlier than promised. Now if they could only manage that with things I actually wanted immediately,,

One of the other things I decided to try from a comment or post that I read somewhere (Don’t remember where) was something called “Moonwind” from Avon. I know most people look at Avon as the cosmetic equivalent of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but if you didn’t live in a big city or have big money I would assume that having someone actually come to your home and let you try some of the latest of the “gooke du femme” (as Joe Keenan would write) is a godsend- even if the hard-sell tactics may have been harder than the fuller brush person. You could see whether that Tangerine Treacle blush or Purple Rose of Cincinnati lipstick was a winner or a zonk, all before “Match Game” and your 3PM sloe gin fizz.

So, Moonwind. It came out in 1971, and was offered in bottles both normal and ones shaped into “keepsakes” some of which are available on eBay (where I purchased my normal one for about $10) to this day. It’s supposed to be a floral aldehyde with green notes. First application reminds me of something from my mother’s dressing table: not Joy or Miss Dior, something more like Antilope (is that still around? Hmmm.) Something that would grab the lady of the house’s attention. Something that says “Paris.” Or perhaps “Paree.” It doesn’t stay that way, becoming a pleasant green little thing that to my nose has a surprising amount of presence to it: either this bottle never saw the light of day or Moonwind was a little more French Quarter than actual French. Which if you know me is in no way a bad thing..

The second trip down sense-memory lane was Yardley English Lavender. I had recently run out of hand soap and was looking to get something in bulk to refill the various pumps I have by the sinks. I didn’t feel necessarily like spending even Bigelow money on it (and really wanted a refill) and found two rather large Yardley’s for well under $10 on Amazon, so I thought what the heck. It’s soap. It’s lavender. How bad could it be?

If you were a kid in the 70’s when there were three networks, maybe two independents (if you were lucky) and PBS, it was almost impossible to miss certain commercials. Before you were 10 you knew that “Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should” and that when you bought the world a Coke, people should be saying “gee, your hair smells terrific” or you might experience the heartbreak of psoriasis. But don’t worry, come summer you’d be off with the family to “See the USA in your Chevrolet”- no doubt the big Kingswood Estate with the magic disappearing tailgate, steel-belted radials, and custom roof rack in the special package. See your dealer!

You also could not avoid hearing about Yardley’s English Lavender. If it wasn’t Deborah Kerr telling us that she surrounds herself with it via herb gardens and soaps, it was Maud Adams telegraphing that we too could get away from our drab work-a-day lives, kids, husbands, and housework to become a Bond girl in a bathtub by a roaring fire, and unlike Roger Moore, the soap won’t start a shoot-out. 

The soap? It’s nice. It’s lavender, a bit of mint, and well, soap. I didn’t feel like a Bond Girl, but my hands were clean and the bathroom smelled nice after I used it. I don’t know that I necessarily need to try the cologne, but I like the hand soap.

And now onto our feature presentation:

4711 has been around forever- it’s one of the oldest colognes there is that’s still in production, dating back to 1792. (You can read about it in exhausting detail HERE) My personal acquaintance with it would have date from more like 1972, when it was kept in the icebox in some people’s houses in the summer months to be splashed on the back of the neck and the wrists on those beastly New England summer days when it would be 90 degrees and 100% humidity at midnight. Pretty much everybody since has come up with some sort of version of this, amping up the citrus or the petigrain or the herbs; you could even make an argument that whole classes of colognes owe it all to 4711 and you wouldn’t be far off. I think scents ranging from Dior Eau Sauvage to Hermes Orange Vert to Malle Outrageous! to about 500 others owe some sort of debt to 4711. This is certainly one of the least expensive: my 3.4oz bottle was about $15 delivered. If I run through it I’ll see about the gallon size..

So how does it smell? Pretty much as I remember it. It goes on flowery, citrusy, and then it’s kind of gone, leaving a vague smell of powdery clean-ness that I honestly cannot tell if it’s left-over notes or just the smell of skin that has had a recent dip in cleansing alcohol. Which is not a bad thing and indeed it the nature of the beast. It’s an initial cool-down. A refresher. A tonic (A potion, a little bit of magic in a world obsessed with science? Sorry different movie) Expecting it to last longer is like expecting a sudden summer squall to last- it’s nice while it’s happening but much longer and it’ll ruin the picnic. I do think you should buy as large a size as you can- You will find yourself on a hot day splashing it more than you would imagine. The fact that it will be gone in 15 minutes means that A) you can reapply or 2) that it won’t screw with what you’re wearing for the day. So I say take it, and enjoy it, for what it is. 

Because one of those beastly summer days could cause even serene, saintly Deborah Kerr to think of burying the body under some of that lavender. Just as soon as it cools off…

Photos: my iPhone