Mary Kay Wins Lawsuit Against Touch of Pink Cosmetics
Straight from the court decision document:
After a trial on the merits, the jury found that Defendants infringed Mary Kay’s
trademarks and engaged in unfair competition and passing off with the specific intent to cause
confusion, to cause mistake, and to deceive. The jury also rejected all of Defendants’ affirmative
defenses, and awarded Mary Kay an accounting of profits. Based on the jury’s verdict, Mary
Kay now seeks the entry judgment for the amount of $1,139,962.00, plus post-judgment interest
at the applicable legal rate.
Yep. That’s over 1.25 million dollars that Mary Kay is now trying to get from Touch of Pink.
Ouch.
lisa brown on 
Cynthia on 
Zombie Sugar on 
BabyBlues on 
Lipstick on 
MK needs to remember they will reap what they sow! They have built their business by breaking the backs (or should I say banks) of the IBC’s and encouraging their SD’s and NSD’s to frontload inventory on their ONLY customers, the IBC. Now they have effectively tied the very hands and purses of those that purchase from them.
If there is any justice in this world, there will be a huge class action suit filed against MK for their business practices, deception and corporate greed. I pray that the great company built on the “Golden Rule” finally has to live up to the tenets of the Golden Rule themselves.
MKC has lied for many years about putting God 1st, family 2nd and career 3rd….I wpnder what their punishment will be?
Yesterday (4-7-09) I checked ebay and found over 27,000 items listed. Today that has jumped to 28,000. Many of the items I saw on a few pages I checked showed only minutes left in the auction and NO bids had been placed. At a conservative average price of $10 that would be about $280,000 worth of merchandise that no one wants or needs. Unless MK changes its policies, there will still be a need for resale sites, and MK will be spending more and more time, energy, and money trying to put them out of business. Resale sites will continue popping up everywhere. Does Estee Lauder, Clinique, Prescriptives, Dior, YSL…have such problems?
ellenk…just further proof that most of the product sold by MK is sitting on the IBC’s shelves! If you can’t sell it for at least what you paid for it, you have no choice but to sell it whereever and however you can, so you can pay your credit card debt.
Luckily, I never had credit card debt specifically because of MK. As an IBC the first time, they only accepted money orders, etc. So I never got into the habit, and I never had a huge inventory. I ordered what my customers and my family used. I was a cosmetics junkie, so ordering new prepacks was fun. Slowly I became allergic to all of their “new and improved” innovations, and today I can only use the lipstick. It used to bother me that I wasn’t ordering a lot of inventory, and I felt bad that I apparently wasn’t accomplishing my “goals” in MK – everyone else ”seemed” to be doing much better. I never understood how you could support yourself selling MK. Now I know you can’t – it doesn’t even sell on ebay. I should have listened to my gut instinct all along.
You’re right Ellen and I’m glad you didn’t get into credit card debt chasing the “dream”. Smart lady!
You are right about the products, they keep changing them and they do cause some adverse reactions in some people. The new mineral makeup which is largely made of talc and the Timewise line are two examples that come to mind.
One thing I notice from eBay (selling Mk product) is that most of the stuffs that no one bid are either discontinued items or over-priced (not a good deal for IBC). I tried to see if I can actually get a better deal buying from eBay than buying from MK directly for something my customer wanted. Two bottles of eye make up remover are bid just a little under IBC’s costs. But with the shipping costs, it is actually more than ordering from MK (I usually have my order picked up).
I also hold some inventory that I am not sure if I’ll be able to sell them. From what I see on eBay, I still think it’s a good place to liquidate the inventory, and expect to get 50% back (ie for Day and Night solution with retail price of $60, the bidding is about $15, 50% of costs to IBC)
That’s true in general Liking MK. But if you buy lots the prices per item are much less. But individual products can run you close to the same as MK cost would be.
Most of the lots I found on eBay are samples. I’ll look harder for lots for products. But again, I probably don’t want to buy the lots as inventory to sell. The important lesson I learned from visiting this website is not to hold inventory.
Last time I checked there were plenty of lots of full-size products. Keep browsing. And no…you don’t want to hold a bunch of inventory. If you can manage to just fill orders as needed, like only placing orders every few months or so at the minimum to get your discount, that would be best.
Yay!!! I’ve always wondered how women get a way with dumping their products on the internet that they made a choice to buy and then could not sell. Many IBC work very hard every day to service my clients and maintain the correct amount of inventory..a job that supports my 3 children and supplements my family income! I came into things eyes wide open and made an educated decision on how much to order based on my goals. It amazes me how women always seem to find someone else to blame for personal failures and choices. Go Mary Kay!
Your job as a makeup artist supports your children and if you sell MK to your clients in your studio you are in violation as is the IBC who sells product to you or your clients as MK is not to be sold in a retail setting.
So what makes one violation any worse than another? Most of the IBC’s who sold their inventory to Touch of Pink were already terinated and no longer working as consultants.
I guess it all depends on whether you are profitting or somebody else, right?
As a way past pink person, I can tell you to go back gumby its a trick, Not only is this not a real business but with all the stupid rules, no you cant sell here, you cant sell it that way, you cant advertise like that, you cant have a booth to sell, you cant have a real website only their pay to play website(thats another storie), you cant you cant you cant, what the (he 2x hockey sticks) can you do with mary kay, Ill tell you what you can do, you can remain a customer if you like the product, or you can buy one thats the same basic product but cheaper way cheaper wow… then you can go to the library get a bunch of books on starting a real business for free just cost your time to research it and what it takes to do it, or you can find a nice nitch product you love and market that by the traditional methods of reserch and development, product branding, advertising & a good stand alone web site that you can submit to search engines, doing local or national shows for exposure and product testing, and passing along samples or cards to help gert your new real business off the ground, now so far most of the things preveously listed are free nearly free or are such a low invenstment to start your going to see that mary kay is nothing but a trash dump of products that are overpriced and sold to its sales force at a so call 50% discount that they collect 100% sales tax upfront on.. trust me the only customers mary kay really has is you if your desperate enough to belive your big pink dream directors insane song and dance lies to the top reach for the stars your a star you can do it OMG what a freek n pink crock… the fact is i have been in my own business for over 25 years i fell into the pink mouse trap for a few years i became a director it was good i made money had 100+ great consultants and they made money too, we had car drivers 3 plus me and i never lied to any of them to get orders we worked for real went by the rules and did it by the book until the book kept changing it begain to come apart for me 3 years ago and it was when i was told to lie to make people sign up, i called my national personally told her i quit sold all my stuff cheap got rid of my 4 suits and told mary kay up yours i dropped off and when my lying sales director that i totally disliked tried to tell me how good i was and i should resign with her i laughed in her face told her to move on im done she was oh dont be mad im sorry your having a bad day ? A BAD DAY! no not a bad day i good day i woke up before i let my real business go down that rat hole called my mary kay whatever it was! if you want my opinion BABY DONT DO IT!!!!! it is for the foolish and desperate women thats easy to bluff into the “pink posture” think ankles and grabbing them and you will get my drift…be strong educate yourself and ask what do i really want to do with my life?
WAY PAST PINK!
*applause* - Not the magazene.
Good for you WayPastPink! Great story.
Waypast Pink what I find interesting is that if you were that successful (and I believe you were) who told you to lie your NSD, the company, or your Senior? Did the rules change that much to where you had higher production requirements or you just got tired of it?
I am not a Mary Kay consultant, but just happened across this. I also found the Summary Judgment document on the internet. http://pub.bna.com/eclr/08cv776_22009.pdf I read this completely differently in that Touch of Pink was the one bringing the motion and most all of it was granted.
I was with Mary Kay for years, beginning as a young mom with no money, except for my start-up kit. So, I held classes for 2 weeks, collected the orders, and built my inventory slowly. For 6mos, I only took a 10% paycheck, but built my business debt free. I left the business for health reasons and re-signed several years later, coming in with a full inventory. This time, I carried a loan and it could have been a problem, but I utilized a business plan and WORKED IT. If I had owned a small business of any other kind, a bank would have required a business plan from me before even considering me for a loan, so it was just good business sense to apply the same strategy. From my perspective, a great many consultants fail because they do not apply discipline to their business, but run it as an afterthought or run it sporadically. As consultants, we may only have 15 hours to give each week, but they should be well thought/planned out hours that are consistently moving us towards achieving a goal. We should be researching sales techniques to improve our income, but lessen our load. When someone suggests applying unethical business methods, then we must state our boundaries firmly and quickly. If need be, the individual (s) should be reported. If satisfaction is not found, go up the ladder until it is. If the battle is just too hard, then it may be time to get out. I suggest that ”the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater.” Mary Kay is like any other organization; it is filled with human beings of all different types. The basic premise the company was founded upon was one of integrity and the God first principle. Unfortunately, there will always be those who become greedy and put money first and stampede over people, their needs, good will, and their boundaries, to get it. The old addege “one bad apple spoils the hole bag,” is certainly applicable here. The company, from my viewpoint, is basically good and markets good products, but obviously cannot control everyone that works for them; nor are they without flaws. Former consultants may want to remember that we were presented with material to read, terms of agreement/a contract, that clearly stated what we were not allowed to do with our product. I myself remember thinking I didn’t like some of the rules, but we all signed our names. For my own part, I would feel as though I were whining if I cried “foul” at this point. I’m an adult, I need to own my own stuff. In the mean time, let’s hope Mary Kay will learn and make some positive changes.