30 COMMENTS

  1. Well, the lipsticks should have been the first clue. They’ve rolled out the gel formulas in three waves in Canada, so it should be no surprise if the eyes and cheeks go next. I’m sure they’ll find a few more shades of shiny blue & green to bring out.

    • Remember the eyeshadow duet called “Cotton Candy”? Pink and blue eyeshadow. It was horrible! And Pink Ice lipstick. I never liked Mocha Freeze and that awful gray tint it carried. And then there was one that was purple. Can’t recall the name because I never sold any of it, but it was the ugliest thing.

    • And the new brushes that came out last year, oooh it was a big year lol.

      The year I joined, it was a Tropical / Hawaiian theme for the Limited Edition with a 3 colour shadow palette of very shiny brown, blue and green. A few years later, that palette was trotted out again but this time for a “Exotic Far East” limited edition theme. I said to my then-director that this was the same as the Hawaiian one and she looked right at me all straighfaced and said, “Oh, is it really?” C’mon! I couldn’t believe she pretended she didn’t notice! ?

  2. If it’s been 10 years since the last overhaul on the makeup then it seems like you’re grasping at straws here.

    • EmilyC, it’s not that there are changes. It’s the practice in the past to keep changes hush hush to the rank and file consultants as long as possible so they keep ordering product that, unbeknownst to them will be discontinued very soon.

      Any director who knows about changes coming soon but still encourages consultants to order inventory that they don’t currently have a retail sale for, is only pumping up her commission check, and not caring about discontinued product on her unit’s shelves.

  3. When consultants realize they are in fact “direct buyers”, it should be expected the company is going to change product. That’s what companies do to keep people buying. The company is MK Corporate and not the consultants. Duh right?

    But here’s where the real ruse comes in…

    It is particularly scummy that MKC uses the tactic of calling direct buyers “consultants” to find customers to buy makeup under the guise of empowering women, and suggest that they can make an executive income selling product at double the retail price; and expects them to find other direct buyers to buy from Corporate at single retail at the same time. Yep, that’s what I said.

    Of course MK does this, they use the scam of MLM.

    People fall for that effed up load of crapola all the time, their inner ego gets played, they are dubbed business owners lol, and Corporate laughs all the way to the bank.

    The scam of MLMing is rampant with both sexes, but I believe it will be the passion of women who eventually take them down. At the very least ladies, don’t enable these scammers.

  4. Considering this websites sole reason for existing is to unabashedly slam everything that mary kay does, it’s not a surprise why this was posted nor where you’re going with this information. Let’s not play coy, I dont have time for that.

    • EmilyC, it’s not that there are changes. It’s the practice in the past to keep changes hush hush to the rank and file consultants as long as possible so they keep ordering product that, unbeknownst to them will be discontinued very soon.

      Any director who knows about changes coming soon but still encourages consultants to order inventory that they don’t currently have a retail sale for, is only pumping up her commission check, and not caring about discontinued product on her unit’s shelves.

    • “Considering this websites sole reason for existing is to unabashedly slam everything that mary kay does…”

      Do you find any good in drunk driving, abuse, or stealing? Bad acts like MLMing and the companies that use it should be entirely condemned. Geesh.

      • I don’t care if this website bashes mary kay. It’s a free country, say whatever you want to. The only thing bad about mlms is the ordering of unnecessary product you havent sold and have no way to sell… which is usually optional even though people ignore their common sense and do it anyway *shrug*

        • Tell that to the people who have gone into debt, gotten divorced, or have lost friends to suicide over believing that doing MLM was actually a business and path to financial freedom.

          What a shame you don’t care and just ‘shrug’ off, or worse support, the company’s and upline’s lies by associating with them.

          • Do I have to be as angry as you are in order to not be berated in this fashion? I’m not terribly angry when people ignore their own common sense and then something negative happens. Why is that such a trigger for you? Maybe take some time to contemplate the reason that might upset you so much and learn something about yourself in the process instead of barking at people on the internet who’s thoughts don’t exactly match the ones in your mind.

            • Berated? No one berated you. If there’s any anger here, it’s because of how many women are being scammed by MK with this fake opportunity. But let’s not make this about you, because no one is attacking you. If you didn’t want people to respond to your comments…. maybe you shouldn’t have commented at all.

              • I’m feeling more like if I’m on a terribly slow forum with people who have such a victim mentality and blame everyone one else for their problems instead of their own greed then I shouldnt have commented at all. Have a wonderful day, drone clones.

                • You sound like you need a safe space, Emily. I suggest a coloring book and an emotional support pet too.

                • No one called you names, yet you went there. Don’t get a nose bleed from that high altitude your head is in.

        • No Emily, ordering product is NOT optional. Don’t order MKrap often enough and you’re out. Don’t order enough MKrap, you lose out on commissions. Don’t order enough MKrap, you lose your Directorship.

          I’ll repeat: Ordering product is NOT optional.

          Come back after the mind control wears off.

    • Oh Emily. I don’t care if the company changes their products. I have a problem with the business model of loading up consultants with inventory they’ll never be able to sell. (That’s almost all of them, by the way.) It’s even worse when the directors are secretive about the product changes and load up new consultants with products that they KNOW will be obsolete in a matter of a few months.

  5. Yes, new colors coming in November or maybe December. New eye shadows, blush, contours and highlighters. New formula, but will fit in existing compacts. New Pro Palette coming out too. Pricing is the same, I think — $8 for eye shadow, $14 for blush, contour and highlighter.

    • A Pro Palette? Sounds like somebody is copying Bobbi Brown’s. At least there, I’ll have someone service me that looks like they should be giving makeup advice!

  6. First, I totally hear you about multi-level marketing corporations being scammy businesses! It’s scary to see a friend get hooked and not know what to say because her previous job had its own set of horrible problems too. 🙁

    Second, I don’t understand this bit about how discontinuing a line of makeup makes the existing products in the line *obsolete*. It’s not as though they expire as soon as they’re discontinued, right?

    I understand the problem with products that are supposed to *match* skin color – get someone interested in a line of foundation, stop carrying her specific shade, she’ll switch to another line probably in another brand.

    But, eyeshadow and lipstick? I have some Almay eyeshadow (in colors that look good on me) that I bought at CVS shortly before it was discontinued, and I still use it because it still looks good and it hasn’t gone bad. When it’s gone, that’s OK because I can go to the same store and replace it with another eyeshadow compact (in similar colors that also look good on me).

    • The problem with the discontinued products is that they no longer appear in the catalogs. So the consultant is limited in how new customers would know about the discontinued products.

      Plus, it’s human nature for customers to want the NEW products.

      I don’t know any new consultant who would be thrilled with spending thousands on products that will be part of the discontinued line in a couple of months. I bet she’d rather wait and order the new products.

    • If I’m a customer and order the brown-beige-tan set called “Far East Spice” that’s in the current Look Book, I expect to receive what I ordered. Remember: as an end user customer I’m paying a lot of money for this stuff.

      If the consultant delivers me a brown-beige-tan set called “Tropical Twist” instead, and says “but it’s the same colors” I will NOT be happy, unless she gives me a big discount. First, I’ll be suspicious because it’s NOT what I ordered. Second, I’ll immediately know that she’s trying to dump old discontinued products on me.

      Now maybe those eye makeup ingredients break down in eight months, or maybe they have the same half-life as a rock. I don’t know. But I’m not willing to pay a premium price to find out the hard way.

      The same unhappiness goes for other customers. That means the consultant is stuck with product she has to sell at a big discount, if she can sell it, when the product packaging or names change.

      On the other hand, if Mary Kay kept the same packaging and product names year after year, the consultants could easily sell what they have on hand (fewer new orders “for the unit”). The only way I might know I’m getting old product is to decode the product lot number stamped on the box.

    • Revlon has kept “Fire and Ice” lipstick on the market for several decades maybe since the 1950s. Same with “Cherries in the Snow”. Formulas have updated, packaging is slightly divverent, but the color is still very popular as the best reds EVER. They have had “Persian Melon” (great peach color) since I was in high school.

      Mary Kay doesn’t just change formulas and packaging, they discontinue colors. Why? because they don’t do actual retail level surveys and they don’t know (and don’t care) what the people who wear their lipstick like. A change forces massive new inventory orders and that’s how they make money.

      If a consultant loses a customer because the product she likes is no longer on the market, they don’t care.

      • Clinique introduced “Black Honey” in 1971. My mom bought it for Halloween. Packaging and formulations have changed over time to stay on-trend, but the color of my mom’s purchase matches the limited edition collection I ordered from Sephora last month.

        This is one “cult classic” I’m addicted to!

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