Avon Lady - An Investigation (2025)

This is a deep dive into the urbex (urban exploration) community’s notorious Avon lady house. I wanted to figure out who the Avon lady and mother of this family was, her motivations to participated in Avon, and the relationship between her, her husband, and finances. I discovered that the grandmother, who lived in the home with them, was apart of another company with very similar structure: Dutchmaid Inc. This company would host “party-plan selling events” where “fashion stylists” would host parties and sell clothing and manuals to create garments. The grandmother was one of the many women of the mid-1900s that found ways to make money through alternative paths, because women were not permitted to own credit cards. This practice was passed along to Avon Lady. It was apparent by how much merchandise and how prevalent Avon was within the home that she worked incredibly hard within the multi-level marketing brand to help her family, specifically her two sons who had a burning passion (and are very successful now) for bowling. This is a clear story of a dedicated mother loyal to her family and her work. However, every bank statement was under the husband’s name. This is not much of a surprise because of the nature of women relating to money that I stated earlier, but the decades Avon Lady was working for this company should align with the liberation of this rule. Of course, we are assuming much and guessing at the timeline, but looking at the grandmother’s practices within Dutchmaid Inc., we can infer that these societal expectations and norms were passed down to Avon Lady. This is a perfect depiction of the discrimination against women within finances and ownership, and how these women found a way around these rule to provide for their families. No matter the true story from our hypotheticals, it is clear that both women were incredibly strong and successful at what they did, all for their family.