Cotillion Cologne

Ahhhh Aunty Debbie, my family's Avon Lady. Of course my family only ordered the glassware (which was actually really fun) but perfumes were strictly forbidden. My maternal Grandma, whom I lived with growing up, hated perfumes of any and all kind. But, as fate would have it when her son, my uncle Dale, married Debbie's sister, my aforementioned (in the Jovan Musk review) Aunt Karen, Debbie became our Aunty too. She never got along well with Grandma (few people did...) so occasionally she'd casually slip my sister and I mostly empty sample bottles of her Avon colognes. She'd always assure us, "Don't worry, it's not perfume, it's cologne!" 😏 Amongst these the Queen in my eyes were the bottles of Cotillion. Carnation, and a light rose dries down into a myrrh heavy sandalwood, with the slightest cassia and cloves. I picked up a new old stock bottle off of Etsy and I was pleasantly surprised that the new "Crystal Point Saltshaker" hadn't lost its top notes like the tiny final crystal tube I've been holding onto for about 30 years. I moved both bottles to an atomizer and sprayed away sure I was about to have a lovely day out running around. That is not what happened at all... After taking my mom to a doctor's appointment I had to run back home for something real quick (I forgot something, of course), and in the 30 minutes the drop off trip took my entire kitchen, hallway, bathroom, and two bedrooms had filled with water to about a half an inch deep. Our self filling water filter had burst right after I left. So, how well did Cotillion hold up to 8 hours of removing 20 gallons of water and about $2,000 of damaged furniture and clothing from the house? Surprisingly well! I found the hotter and moister I got the better it actually smelled, which is certainly not what I was expecting. Not normally a summer scent, but through that stress it was oddly comforting. So, I think I'm going to wear it again today with a little bit of B&BW's Cashmere Glow and ice my sore back while their scents mingle and keep me feeling snuggly and comfortable. (Which I did indeed do and they smelled great!) Also my hubby really liked it too, and the fact that he had the energy to compliment my scent before bed after the nightmare that was yesterday is really saying something. (Small edit: A friend of mine recently sent me a little sample decanted of a vintage bottle of Guerlain's L'Huere Bleue Eau du Parfum (circa the 70's I think) after she heard how much I loved Cotillion. Yep, definitely Avon's sister scent. Little me had good taste. 😂 )

I bought this new in the box from Goodwill in 2018 sometime. I wish since I started collecting colognes and perfumes early this year that I had not used almost half the bottle and threw away the box when I first got it! I last used it early this year right about the time I started collecting. The problem though, is that it was quite weak. It smells like a more flowery and feminine version of my recently found scent of Persian Wood, also an Avon scent.

This is my favorite out of all vintage Avon-s I have. Like someone below said, it reminds me of Shalimar with the burnt vanilla. There's something smoky, syrupy, but also incense-y. Have the little roller ball and love to put behind my ears and between my shirt and skin. Strong yet elegant. Good for work or relaxing. Will def buy myself the spray from ebay when I'm done with this one.

It took me a long time to grow into this fragrance. I never liked the name and the whole idea behind it, young women attending cotillion balls as debutantes, so that has likely skewed my opinion of the scent. I can now finally wear it, but it was on my dislike list until recently, when I decided to take it out after several years and try to work with it a bit. Now I know why I didn't like it when I was young and it seemed all my older aunts were wearing it. It's always seemed to me a more mature fragrance, even in the 70s when I first smelled it: definitely one I had to adjust to. It's one of the dryest perfumes I have ever smelled, a dry woody/spicy fragrance with what seems like carnation, maybe some iris and incense, also a bit ambery in the drydown. I do enjoy the sandalwood here enough to change my opinion of the scent to a like, even if not enough to wear often. It reminds me a bit of perfumes like Femme by Rochas and Balenciaga's Quadrille, the style of those anyway.

This isn't a badly aged Avon perfume. I own the white swan version with the golden crown, adorable bottle. It's certainly an aged perfume, but it's still easily competitive with other classics that have perhaps a better reputation such as Chanel. It's creamy, earthy, some white floral arrangements, some musk. Something sweet underneath it all, overall not a bad perfume. Not really my style but a nice cheaper alternative to more expensive versions of similar creations. If you like classics and you like moss and woods and white florals, you'll probably dig it. 6/10

This is for the vintage, which has lost its top-notes, so this refers only to the heart and base. Spicy floriental. Myrrh prominent in the very Guerlain-esque base of smokey amber, powdery orris, musk, civet, dark woods, and vanilla. Clove-y carnation, ylang-ylang, and white flowers hovering above... quite a lovely fragrance, actually. As it's cologne-strength, I need to apply several swipes, which is fine as I enjoy interacting with the nifty bottle.

I shared a bottle of this scent with my Mom back in the 1980's. It smelled somewhat like Chantilly- in other words a pleasantly old-fashioned powdery floral- but with a bit less spices/sandalwood, and a touch more powder. The floral notes seemed sweeter than those in Chantilly. Sillage and longevity were on the high end of moderate.

Cotillion smells like baby powder with a trace of rose or carnation at first. Soon the spices and woody notes start to develop, and it's a lot more interesting. After an hour or so, this is a scent I'd want to wear at night.

i have an old bottle of this i found at an antique store. not sure of the year, as i could find very few photos that look like the bottle i have, but it looks 60s or 70s. i think it may have turned because it's a bit musty smelling, but not *too* bad. it smells like florals and heavy oakmoss and sandalwood. i think it may be a nice scent when fresh, but it's difficult to tell.

I can’t smell this one easily, but there’s almost a cinnamon smell once it dries later in the day.

Softly powdered with sandalwood and spiced by cinnamon and cloves, Cotillion is certainly the oriental genre at its most genteel. Originally conceived by Avon in 1934, the bottle sampled here is 40 or 50 years younger, ...but of course, still quite vintage now, as this world enters the second quarter of the 21st Century. The bottle I sample from is shaped like a fluted urn, with a flared cylindrical golden cap . Cotillion is a fairly simple and straightforward scent, but still quite antiquely pleasant and wearable. Perhaps it was first intended as a simplified substitute for L'Heure Bleue as the comparisons above suggest. That suggested similarity with Balenciaga's Quadrille is also an intriguing idea, ...but it seems unlikely. Probably that comparison arose due to the similar meaning of the names. Both the cotillion and quadrille are early forms of square dancing from the 18th and 19th Centuries, ...though cotillion later took on a more general meaning as a term for some formal social dancing events.

I obtained a .33 oz perfume roulette bottle of Cotillion. Its about 1/3rd full and I don't think I will ever use it on my skin as it may have DNA from someone else. The contents are hazy and thick like an oil. It smells as generic as the notes listed above. I guess that's why Avon has been in business for as long as they have because their 'secret notes' are never revealed in some perfumes. Just from smelling the top of the roller ball it reminds me of Zen by Shiseido.

Avon Cotillion Perfume Dram Circa 1963 - The perfume is much much nicer than the cologne version. More carnations and spice plus some oakmossy sandlewood base. Maybe my cologne was a dud because this is an outstanding vintage fragrance. The glass cylinder dram bottle, about the size of a lipstick tube, with the bright brass screwtop, came in the original box and cost about ten bucks on Ebay. It's a keeper.

I tried a 1964 cologne version of Cotillion (.5 oz in small glass flask with a cute plastic topper, full, stored in the original box). Mainly I smelled carnations and something a little spicy. Very bland, not too exciting. I guess this is a floral because it didn't seem to have enough woody/mossy base to qualify as a chypre, in my opinion.

My bottle mirrors the one here: perhaps the opaque bottom shielded this from light and temperature changes as it remains potent and quite lovely! It is a mature scent with great silage, powdery but with a heart of cloves and musk and ‘umpf’ it is quite Lovely!

i have this in a bottle shaped like a black cat! definitely has a vintage smell, powdery and a bit soapy. its soft though, a little creamy and sweet. overall not my favorite type of fragrance but it's pleasant