Deep Woods
Avon (1974)

I had high hopes for this one, like I have for most Avon branded men's fragrances. Interesting, cool decanters (my 5 oz. bottle is the log version), incredibly low prices for vintage, and promising listed notes. Unfortunately, Avons' suffer from weak performance; I mean verrry weak. No problem, I carry around a small decant. Sniffing it in the bottle, this one smelled like what I wanted: nostalgic barbershop. But then it turns "pedestrian" on the skin and disappears extra fast. None of the notes listed stand out; it's just an old-smelling "spicy" mess. I mildly prefer Avon Black Suede to this one. I have Avon Tribute on the way. Hope springs eternal.

Basic Barbershop Lavender ,Herbal, Citrus, Patchouli woodiness. Minimal sweetness. Simple structure that emphasizes no ingredient over another. Slap a little Galbanum-esque Clary Sage, Honeyed Amber and touch of Tonka and you have an outrageous scent, not unlike Paco Rabanne Pour Homme.Avon, with Deep Woods, supplies a Conservative 60's style "cleanliness" that I will take almost always over any 90's up Ozonic, Aqua nonsense.
Simply. This smells good, on me, for about 4 hours, when it melts away into a mild woodiness.

Stardate 20180930:

A nice old school barbershop. Has the tonka, moss and herbs. The soapy aldehyde brings it close to Paco Rabanne PH. The aldehydes are much less than PRPH which lets tonka and lavender to express themselves.
All in all a good masculine.

1970's Avon is some of the best-remembered, and it was a decade of popularity for the fragrance giant before department store designers and corporate mall-level luxury labels started taking nibbles into their mostly middle-class market by the 1980's, causing a creative free fall of sorts that would finally end at Y2k. The 60's was the halcyon year for male scents from the label, who cranked out some of the most interesting and distinctive stuff they've ever produced in their effort to learn masculine scent craft, but by 1970, experimentation was largely over, and they begun their long-held tradition of riffing close to what was popularized by higher-end perfumers. The stuff from the 70's wasn't quite the blatant plagiarism of later decades, but more or less a hot take on an established trend, with usually good results. Deep Woods was such a hot take, much like Tai Winds and Trazarra, but in this case tackling the aromatic fougere for the third time. I see a lot of people who attempt reviews on these old Avon oddities comparing them to stuff they smell nothing like, which makes me wonder if they really have that limited of a palette in describing them or just sniff the bottle and move on, because everyone I've seen talk about this compares it to something powdery like English Leather or Brut but this is nothing like any of that, so in essence, I'm here to set the record strait for anyone truly curious about this.

Deep Woods looks a lot more rugged than it actually is, as it came originally in a bottle with a log-shaped cap that covered almost the entirety of the bottle (think like Calvin Klein's Contradiction for Men but the log version), but the smell of Deep Woods is much smoother, sweeter, and more mannerly than it's appearance suggests. The opening is much like classic Halston Z-14 (1976), with lots of lemon and bergamot, but it focuses more on the patchouli than the Halston fragrance, and actually beat it to the punch by two years to boot. It seems as if this was a close riff to Paco, but doesn't have the soapiness, the rose orris, or quite the moss contingent. It does have an air of "deep woods" about it because of the herbs, and feels like a progression of the earlier "Excalibur" by Avon but with a stronger backbone that keeps it from being completely vapid like that earlier attempt at an aromatic scent. What's most intriguing is this would be easily mistaken for a mixture of Halston's Z-14 and 112 (also 1976), but it contains the lemon and woods of the former, but the tonka-fueled sweetness of the latter. It's not very barrel-chested or piquant like Avon's own Blend 7 (1973) was, and it isn't quite the galbanum or pine beast that some later scents in the category can be. I think this might have actually been a bigger hit than it was if it didn't have the Cabella's-Grade campy outdoorsy packaging and advertising, because it's a very dapper aromatic that could go toe-to-toe with some of it's upmarket competitors if it had the right presentation, and maybe a bump from EdC to EdT.

Deep Woods will really just be another kitschy 70's Avon fragrance in a goofy bottle to the guys not versed in the brand, but for somebody familiar with the history and progression of masculines in the decade, this comes right out of left field as a scent that smells more expensive than it is, and ahead of the curve by a few years in style. Avon Blend 7 has much the same problem; there was little like it out at the time but only guys willing to step out from behind the shadow of Avon's own hugely popular Wild Country would ever know how good it was, or odd balls like me that love trying stuff such as this 40+ years late. This smooth operator in the quirky thematic bottle will be a nice niche alternative to the mostly still-common designer classics from this period, and will surprise folks who give it the Halston comparison when they learn it came first. It's a neat little footnote in the genre, albeit a discontinued one like all Avon from this time. Avon would gradually lean more and more on copying what had already proven successful for others, but at least with Deep Woods, they proved they were able to stay creative, competitive, and relevant, just so long as you didn't mind wacky bottles.

It just smells like a really good drugstore aftershave should smell.. if you were shopping in the 70's. It's comfortable. All Avon aftershaves seem to be cut from the same cloth, this one is no different. Your reference depends on which ones you've tried. Search me if I can pick out the notes, it's sweet, somewhat powdery, but masculine. Not quite as sweet as Wild Country, with more spice, but not as spicy as Tai Winds.

It comes, or did, come in the same typ of box and bottle as Clint by Avon, but with Deep Woods printed on the top of the box and bottle.

There were a few of these after shaves that were at the time produced using the same style of printing on the boxes, and the same bottles.

Clint
Deep Woods
Everest
and a few others.

All have that 70's era alternating "A" pattern on the boxes with the exception of the name of the after shave on the top, and on the bottle.

Clint is mentioned to have been from 1976

When you see all the different named after shaves next to each other, with the same printing, it kind of feels generic. Not to mention using the same bottle for all the after shave scents.

Reason I can say this is I just came from a Goodwill Store here in the Chicago area today and there was a store that had 30 to 35 bottles of 6 different scents for 2.99 each. I almost got 1 of each type but only liked Clint and Deep Woods. Everest smelled too "Artificially Sporty" scent.