Source: Star-Telegram

Here’s an interesting article about how Avon Beauty Centers are thriving during the recession.

This can be an ugly time to look in the mirror if you’re a beauty executive.

Department-store sales for "prestige" beauty products are down $4 billion for the first half of the year. Even cosmetics giants such as Estee Lauder, which announced this month that it would shut down its high-end Prescriptives cosmetics line by Jan. 31, are hurting.

But while the Lauder brand is backing away from the cosmetics counter, a lower-priced household name is busy building up its bricks-and-mortar beauty business.

It’s Avon calling.

Avon Products has about 200 licensed Avon beauty centers in the U.S., including more than a dozen in Texas. But they’re relatively new in North Texas.

Long a direct-sales dynamo known for its person-to-person "Avon calling" campaigns and catalogs, the company now has its first licensed Avon beauty center on this side of the Metroplex, and the couple who own the store like what they’ve seen.

"It’s always good to be the first in," said owner Rusty DeBlassie, who in August added Avon to the mix at the Wild and Chic Boutique, which he and his wife, Yvette, operate in downtown Weatherford. They decided to try the line after seeing their first Avon store in north Dallas this year.