Brenna Will Be Tearing Up That $100 Check She Wrote Yesterday

Your Name: Brenna

Date Joined MK : August 7, 2008

When Left MK or Still Active?: August 8, 2008

Initial Inventory Purchased: None

How were you recruited?:
I recently moved to a new area and a lady randomly called me and said she wanted to welcome me to the neighborhood by giving me a bunch of free MK products and a free facial. (The “free products” were actually just a bag of those stupid paper samples tied with a ribbon–Thanks for adding to my recycling bin lady) That facial took 3 hours. My husband was pretty annoyed since it was his day off.

Memorable experience you had in MK:
The hilarious “scripts.”

For an answering machine: “Hi Sue. This is Mary. You ARE coming to my Mary Kay Debut, AREN’T you? I REALLY need your support. You CAN come, CAN’T you? I KNOW you’ll be there. I’ll count on you as coming unless you call me. Can’t wait to see you!!!!!”

Can we say “shoot me now to redirect my agonizing pain?”

What did you learn from MK?:
That all of life revolves around winning a free watch.

What are you doing now? :
Full time parent, part time art instructor.

Additional Comments:
I was actually really excited about the idea at first. I am an artistic stay-at-home-mom, and the thought of doing makeovers for a living was attractive. So, I sent in my hundred dollar check with the lady who came by today. Not until after I signed everything, did she tell me that the minimum starting inventory was $600! Luckily, I had known someone who just ordered as they got orders, so I knew that it couldn’t be the “real” minimum. She finally admitted as much when I pressed her.

Now that I have been researching and thinking about it tonight, I came to realize that when it comes down to it, MK parties are just plain cheesy, as is all the literature that I’ve been given so far. I don’t want to be some kind of pink robot.

As far as “reinventing the wheel goes,” I’m a creative person, and if I were to do it, I would want to do it my own way. No pressuring, just girls having fun gettin pretty!

The recruiter wanted me to make a list of 50 friends/relatives for my debut party, and the script she gave was soooo whiny and pathetic. “I’m counting on you” blah blah. AND she was going to be the one giving facials at the party–some strange old lady no one knows? I was thinking of telling her no way on that humiliating party, but then I started having visions of going door to door in my neighborhood handing out flyers, inviting other full time moms to a block party to meet the neighbors. The tag line would be something like: “How excited would your husband be if you actually had makeup on when he came home from work Friday night?” (Since most moms of toddlers can look pretty haggard at the end of the day)

I did the math though, and I would need thousands of customers to make a living at all. So the question remained, even if that worked, where would the other thousand customers come from?

I already got suckered once with Cutco (selling knives-$215 starter pack-got my money back on that one too). The whole reason I was interested was to try to contribute financially to our family as a SAHM. But it definitely sounds like I would have to sacrifice a lot of family time to be successful at this.

And now, hearing that the product is not all it appears to me, especially that the mineral line could even be harmful… I called the MK lady and told her to hold the $100 check until I can “get more info” from her. She agreed, so I will go by tomorrow and tear it up. Also, I am going to exchange the Mineral foundation powder I bought for the Medium cover foundation. I prefer tumorless lungs, actually.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who was so helpful in sharing their opinions. You saved me lots of time and money!

Marie Shares Her “Creepy” Mary Kay Experience

A reader named Marie sent this message describing her experience as a guest at a Mary Kay meeting.

I appreciate your website as well as others who feel the same as I do. I was invited to a MK meeting/skin care. Was made to take off personal makeup to try MK products. I looked terrible/like a stuffed pig, colors were not for me. When the meeting leader showed me a huge case of products that she unrolled,retail to me over $200, I guess I gave her the impression I was not interested, she slammed it on the table.

I was told the next step was to have a personal meeting with the consultant who invited me there. I did meet at her home. She gave me a makeover, much like the one at the meeting. This lasted 2 hrs, when applying the makeup was only supposed to take 15 mins. Needless to say I never purchased MK products & ran as fast as I could from there. It was all very CREEPY!

P.S. There was a story in my local paper this week about a lady who was picking up her pink cadillac. She had been getting a new one every few yrs for 30 years. I guess it is possible to do that, although I wonder what the numbers actually say, & at what expense to others.

Thanks,

Marie