Candid
Avon (1977)

Candid by Avon (1977) is one of the mail-order and door-to-door brand's biggest successes in the 1970's, so much that the scent is still made today and sold directly by the brand online. Candid was part of a broader makeup and scent range, and the original Candid makeup line came in assortments of six eye colors, 6 lip colors, three cheek colors, all scented with the Avon Candid perfume, sold alongside the perfume itself. Aimed at younger women and broadly advertised with both white and African American women too, Candid was notable in being as big inclusive push, right in time for a post-Civil Rights US where people were mingling in discotheques and sexual expression was becoming less taboo, as a counter to economic downturns from the 1973 oil crisis. The scent itself became iconic, far outliving the accompanying make-up range. In regions outside the US, it was discontinued and brought back, but never left US markets. My review sample is original 70's juice, so I can't speak on what Avon puts out there now.

The smell of Candid sits somewhere between a yellow aldehyde floral chypre like Revlon Jontue (1976) - to which Candid is mostly compared - and a soapy carnation sandalwood scent like The Baron by Evyan (1961). The biggest telltale for comparison to the latter is the galaxolide musk dose paired with eugenol to produce that soapy slightly-fruity carnation note which powers The Baron, meaning Candid unintentionally has a lot of unisex crossover; or at least it did if released in 1967 instead of 1977, since by the late 70's, men's tastes in fragrance veered towards the macho-hirsute animalic leathery-green tobacco and musk/moss bombs that began defining masculinity in scent. If dandy sensibilities had held out for another decade, Candid might have been a men's cologne opportunity for Avon. The jasmine, tuberose, ylang, and other bog-standard florals which surround the carnation sandalwood core really create those comparisons to Jontue.

Despite its continued popularity in the catalogs, Candid seems to have a reputation of being a "grandma scent" on an order of magnitude greater than even many classic designers, and I think part of that is due to the cognitive dissonance people feel when they smell it; they pick up the classic floral elements that define 70's perfume, some of which is still current in today's fragrances that utilize tuberose and such, but they also pick up on the far-older carnation and sandalwood accord that defined many fragrances on both sides of the perfume aisle in the mid-century without the knowledge of the original context. These people know the smell is old because of how foreign (by way of absence) these particular notes are in modern perfumery, yet have distant memories of some family elder wearing them, while the things they -do- know are still in the air, just on older women mostly (especially the aliphatic aldehydes). Oh well, I absolutely love Candid, quite candidly too. Thumbs up

(This review is for the original. I haven't smelled the new one.)

This one was unusual. In the early days of second-wave feminism, it was something you could wear to the office and not come across "too feminine"--and as appalling as that desire was, it was really necessary then. I don't mean it was a hymn to penis envy; it was just rather "dry" despite the jasmine, and could probably have been worn by any gender.

And, yes, it smelled good, and got compliments. Nor would you have smelled like everyone else on the bus.

This lovely unique floral frag was one of my favorites for a long time. It was warm and not too sweet. For some reason it reminded me of the way some vintage lipsticks smell, if that makes any sense. It was a more "grown-up" scent than say, Sweet Honesty. Candid also reminds me of Revlon's (vintage) Jontue . Both were very refreshing for inexpensive scents.