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March 23, 1958

Dear Mother,

Enclosed is your duplicate sales copy of the Avon order that I
made out for you. Stunning Pink was as close as I was able to come
to Paint the Town Pink. If you don't like it, the next closest is
Pink Tinge, but I think that is a little more flat. I thought light
brown cake mascara would suit your coloring best, but if you want
the darker brown or the cream mascara, just let me know and if it is
too late to change the order, I can exchange it. I consulted the
charts again and came up with Turquoise Mist as your shade of eye
shadow. I hope that it works out. Loads of eye make-up is supposed
to be the big thing this season with the return of the all-concealing
cloche, the idea being that one's eyes must assume a neon quality to
be seen, but one can always go hatless. Enclosed is a description of
the Rich Moisture Suds, which is on a 98cents special this time. It is
designed for people who prefer soap and water, but it supposed to be
more penetrating and less drying than soap. Avon puts out a terrific
facial soap, if you ever want any, really hard-milled and with a
nice subtle smell. The Nail beauty is a cream that comes in a little
tube and is one of the biggest sellers, because it really works on
cuticle and nail problems. With the hand cream, it's on an 89cents
special this time, regularly they would be 1.18 together. I threw
in the Persian Wood talc because it is a new smell and they are pushing
it to get it started. Regularly it is 79cents, but with any order
it's only 39 cents, and if you don't like it, it should make a nice
little gift. It is kind of a heavy smell, and is better on some people
than others. I'll send you some sachet samples and you can pick
out the Avon smell that you like the best. There are six major scents
and you can get just about every cream, liquid, or power cosmetic that
exists, in each one, then there is a Persian Wood and Here is My Heart,
kind of new, that just come in sachet and talcum powder, also sachet
lotion. I'll send one scent at a time, so that you and the sachets
won't get mixed up. Also, I'll send you a Pink Tinge and a Stunning
Pink lipstick sample. Avon has some pretty good lipstick shades in
the orange tones, if you have any outfits with orange in them. I'll
send you a specials catalog on the next sales campaign, as all my
extra ones are out on loan right now.

Just had a great new idea to make varnish scraping easier. I'm
going to swab the wood with rubbing alcohol, and maybe it will break
down the varnish so it will scrape easier. It can make such a mess of
a furniture by accident, why not use it on purpose for a change.
Yesterday Jim overhauled the bathroom. It all began when he tried to fix
a leaky faucet and found the fitting rusted because the boob who
installed the washbowl didn't use putty. He wound up installing a whole
new washbowl, much nicer and deeper than the old one, and he met a
fellow who is in the plumbing business, new and used fixtures, but
would just as soon give the stuff away if it didn't louse up his
bookkeeping. He has a tie-in with a house wrecker, and has a whole lot
full of fascinating miscellaneous stuff. To do a complete job, Jim caulked all the tile around the tub, toilet, and bowl, and all the
faucets, with putty, and removed the toilet for a while, to see how
the pipe was underneath. Fortunately, it was fine, and we learned
quite a bit about plumbing of the powder-room variety. It was a
perfect day for indoor plumbing, since it rained all day and promises to
do the same today. We were lucky to get the bookcases down from SF
during a lull in the weather, but shortly before we got home, we had
to stop and put a tarp over them.