Bravo
Avon (1969)

Here's a Leather that started as Tabac Blond sans Clove and Carnation, tagged with English Leather and disappeared into the far reaches of Oland.

Dior revived it, bumped up the staying Power, slapped a bright, modern lick of Lipstick upon it, labeled it Cuir Cannage and lined it up into Dior's Semi-Niche La Collection Privée.

Shhh, Keep it to yourself.

Avon Bravo (1969) is one of the strangest and most painfully dated items in the early men's catalog from the house. In true "what were they smoking back then?" manner, Avon decided to release a men's product aimed at acid-dropping hippies. The bottle and box are clearly designed with late 60's counterculture in mind, featuring appropriately psychedelic font, colors, and bottle shape. I'm guessing this aftershave was meant to cash in on the style of the youth at the time, both by the way it looks and the way it smells. Being an aftershave instead of a full-on cologne actually works in Bravo's favor because the way it smells is not something I'd want to linger for more than a few hours unless I was reeking of pot smoke or attending the Coachella and Burning Man festivals in the modern day, being as the Woodstock and Monterey Pop mindset of Bravo fits well in these settings. Avon Bravo was a lark in that it never had an accompanying toiletries line, and is simply a weird standalone aftershave lotion.

The smell of Avon Bravo is that of a lighter, slightly fruiter take on Tabac by Mäurer & Wirtz (1959), infused with some typical Avon house notes. The opening is really reminiscent of a banana peel type of smell that I cannot identify as a known note in perfumery. Anyone who has tasted Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum will know what I'm talking about here, and this note is soon joined by heliotrope and geranium in simple fashion. It doesn't take long for a tobacco note recalling the classic Tabac to emerge, but this tobacco note isn't as "out there" since Avon flanks it with amber, oakmoss, and hay-like coumarin, with a peck of musk. Overall, the composition is oddly fruity and musky for something from the end of the 60's, but if this truly was meant for hippies (assuming any actually shaved), then the smell makes sense. Three hours tops of close sillage like most Avon aftershaves is what you get here, and folks who love Tabac may want to consider layering this to give it a brighter, happier mood lift. Outside of that, I can't think of a proper context for this goofy stuff.

1969 was a really bizzare year for Avon, as this was the same year Excalibur (1969) and Structured for Man (1969) were also released. It's like they were trying to capitalize on the popularity of Wild Country (1967) so hard, that any old half-baked theme (like King Arthur or a man's vanity set) passed muster and was tossed into production, so it's of little wonder that a pink, yellow, black, and red aftershave that looked like something Syd Barrett from early Pink Floyd would wear made its way into the catalog. On the bright side, you won't smell like anyone else wearing banana tobacco and baby powder aftershave, so for the obstinant non-conformists walking the earth in the 21st century, digging up a bottle won't be hard. Only the name "Bravo" itself seems lackluster, and if you don't like the embarrassingly loud packaging, it also comes in bowling pins, mailboxes, and golf caddies. Thumbs up for the laughs, but nobody enjoying this can take it seriously, so you probably expected that.