Avon: Making women’s lives beautiful

Avon is not just about makeup and making women beautiful. Fact is, it’s been making women’s lives around the world beautiful. Take, for example, Rosallie Soriano, 45-year-old mom of four children, who had to drop out of school at 17 when she got pregnant.  With the family coffers running dry and faced with an empty future, Rosallie joined Avon in 1989 and became a top seller on her second month as an Avon Lady. At first, she was just selling lotion and lipsticks to her mom, aunt, and godmother; and then came the referrals. Now, she’s sales executive leader of Avon’s Caloocan branch, with 400 people under her.

So, how much is Rosallie earning from Avon? Let’s just say she’s able to send her children to college and she’s got two cars sitting in her garage at her lovely home.

“What motivates me is the fact that while I’m earning, I’m also able to help uplift the lives of other women by helping them earn,” says an emotional Rosallie as she gets teary-eyed. “When I see that their lives are getting beautiful, it gives me the strength and inspiration to help them even more.”

Rosallie has had her share of the limelight — you probably saw her on GMA’s primetime telenovela Prinsesa ng Buhay Ko as the sales leader of lead star Kris Bernal who played an Avon Lady.

Then there’s 28-year-old Katrina “Katsy” Faustino, a driven young lady who dreams of putting up her own design firm. She confesses she grew up with Avon products (she sweetly remembers Sweet Honesty, the iconic Avon scent, as one of those products) and has always been surrounded by Avon Ladies — her aunt, officemate’s mom, and her neighbors. She was buying a lot of Avon products (because she didn’t have that much money and Avon was a good buy, price-wise and quality-wise) and her tita (the mom of her architect friend) encouraged her to join Avon as her income as a free-lance architect was not that stable. Katsy graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines with a degree in architecture.

“Sige, go ako dyan,” Katsy told her tita. “Here was an earning opportunity I would also enjoy because I love the brand.”

She started by selling to friends and branched out by selling to the construction workers in her condo. Yes, Katsy got the male construction workers to buy makeup for their wives as well as boxer shorts, perfume and deodorant for themselves (these guys also like to smell good even as they sweat under the sun all day long).

Katsy, now an Avon independent franchise dealer, Shaw Boulevard branch, loves the fact that Avon empowers women to become independent and earn their own living.

Katsy was also voted as one of 20 members of the Avon Makeup Council after she submitted her makeup pictorial, beauty blog post and trial video. Avon has inspired her to start her own beauty blog. Her adailydoseofkatsy.com is where she tackles her many passions — makeup, design, travel.

“In my blogs, you’ll see all the beauty products I’ve been trying,” explains Katsy. “But I’ve been focusing on Avon products, I’m now trying the skincare line. I just want to share my new finds and make good-quality products accessible to other women.”

At this ladies’ lunch (with the exception of one fine young man), conversation quickly shifts from beauty to an ugly topic — domestic violence. As we nibble our buttered bread, we get into an impassioned discussion of battered women. This month being International Women’s Month, Avon launches its #SeeTheSigns campaign as part of its 2014 Speak Out Against Domestic Violence initiative, now in its sixth year.

#SeeTheSigns is an international media initiative that teaches the public to recognize the signs of domestic violence (and it’s not just the bruises or physical abuse but the verbal/emotional/psychological, too) and arms them with the right information to help stop abuse.

The grim statistics show that one in every three women is a victim of domestic violence. “Even if it’s one in two or one in six, it’s one too many,” asserts the lovely Julie Tatarczuk, Avon Philippines’ president and general manager. “And as we know, behavior breeds behavior. If women can’t get out of a situation and they have daughters, when do you start to break the cycle? It’s all about a behavioral cycle — if you’re in a family environment where the father is abusive to his wife and there’s a son and there’s a daughter in that relationship, the boy will learn to act like the father and the girl will learn to act like the mother. And they go off in the world and reenact the environment they had been in because that’s their normal. So again, if we can raise awareness and say that’s not normal, everyone has a real choice and there’s real help out there, that’s the most positive thing we can bring.”

Julie whose heart goes out to women victims of abuse shares the story of an American lady living on a farm in the midwest with her three children — plus one on the way — and her abusive husband. “It’s a pretty hard life; the husband goes out, the wife stays home. Where they live, there’s a statistic that says that during the crop time, there are more apparent accidental deaths of women because things happen. This woman spent her whole life in an abusive relationship. That one particular evening, her husband came home and pushed her downstairs and she was pregnant with her fourth child. Two days before, she had been into town and met someone with an Avon brochure who asked if she could interest her to buy Avon. It was the first nice human contact she’d had in a long time. After she was pushed downstairs, he just left her. Something inside her snapped, it was just a moment for her. She packed her bags, took the children, and went into town. Someone took her in and she became an Avon representative. And now, she’s divorced because she says she knew that if she had stayed, first of all, she couldn’t protect her unborn child, but she also knew that oh, my God, my children will grow up being like her or like her abusive husband and she didn’t want that. Four years ago, she stood in front of women and told her amazing story of courage.  There are many like her we don’t know about and will never know about.”

Until they come forward and speak out. “When women are in that situation and they can’t talk about it and they think it’s them, what do you do with that?” Julie laments. “By talking about it, there’s hope that it’s not just me and there’s a way out. We did that with breast cancer, we were one of the first companies to talk about breast cancer and forge that community spirit — women helping and supporting each other through illnesses. It’s the same with domestic violence. We have to talk about it or we just can’t move forward.”

Julie, a super mom to her own teenage kids Chloe and Piers (plus a Yorkshire named Hugo), sadly notes that domestic abuse victims are getting younger and younger. It’s happening in college, in the university. They could be living with their partners or they have boyfriends.  The boyfriend beats up the girlfriend because he’s jealous and he doesn’t like the way she dresses. The girlfriend thinks it’s okay because it’s a sign of love.

Julie adds, “It doesn’t matter if it’s physical or mental, it’s happening to 16-year-old and 17-year-old girls who are just starting on their life journey — how do they know how to navigate through that? So getting them to speak up or even just share with a friend, that’s one huge step for them or any woman. Just share with a friend or ring a number to say what’s happening with her and get good counsel.”

Come out, speak out, and stop violence in your own home — now! Here are the hotline numbers victims of violence can call:

• Manila: Women’s Crisis Center — 922-5235 and 926-7744.

• Dumaguete: Gender Watch Against Violence and Exploitation — (035)4228405.

• Pampanga: IMA Foundation — (045)6246050.

• Davao: Legal Center for Women and Children — (082)3065761.

Empowering women to dream and make their dreams come true, Avon is providing its representatives with the best beauty products they can sell easily through their customers. Themed Avon Customers’ Choice 2014, the special gold-covered brochure features top hot favorites among customers, based on a survey done months before.

And did you know that Avon, the company for women, now has six million representatives worldwide — and counting? They personify Avon’s “six million reasons to succeed.”

Now, isn’t that the most beautiful story you’ve ever heard?