The hallmark of pyramid schemes (masquerading as something legitimate under an innocent-sounding name like multi-level marketing) is false earnings claims. We at Pink Truth know that time and again, research shows that more than 99% of people LOSE MONEY in MLM.

Nonetheless, practically all you ever hear about is how much money participants are making. And these claims are largely lies. When confronted with the reality that so many people lose money in MLM, the companies themselves resort to excuses like “women don’t really want to make money with Mary Kay… they do it for fun and as a social outlet.”

Written by SuzyQ

“If you do not have a full store, and are attempting to sell out of an empty wagon…  not only will you have an upset customer, she might even call another consultant who has a full store and not only will you lose that sale, you will LOSE THAT CUSTOMER!”

Oh the drama trauma.  That part of the inventory talk goes something like this:

Director:  Mary Kay does not require you to carry an inventory, and I don’t require you to carry an inventory, but my job as your director is to give you my best business advice, wouldn’t you agree?

Written by Queen of Section 2

Once the decision to do it is made, one’s start-up in Mary Kay couldn’t be made easier. From ordering business cards and purchasing a personalized website and other sales aids, to sitting down with your director to purchase your first inventory package. It’s easy.

Even if you feel uneasy about plunking down a few thousand dollars in skin care and make-up, Mary Kay makes that decision easy, too. They offer you a 90% buy-back guarantee on Section 1 product, which is valid for a whole year.

Written by The Scribbler

For those that aren’t familiar with the MRS. CAB recruiting script, it is an acronym designed to show potential recruits the reasons why women join Mary Kay: Money, Recognition, Self-Confidence and Personal Growth, Cars, Advancement, and Be Your Own Boss.

(Technically, the acronym should read “MRS. CAPGCABYOB” but recruiters were complaining that every time they tried to pronounce it at interviews, targets were hastily dialing their pastors and screaming, “For the love of all that is holy, get over to the Starbucks down on 18th St – the Mary Kay Lady’s resorted to invoking Ba’al!”)

Written by Raisinberry

We here at Pink Truth are still human. We didn’t defog out of Mary Kay and suddenly become vicious negative sub-human life forms, contrary to the Pink spin about this website.

It’s no wonder that NSDs really don’t want consultants or potential recruits  coming to this site and reading an opposing view from what they are being told at a guest event or from a recruiter. The information here opens up doubt. What happens when you read Pink Truth is suddenly your suspicions become confirmed. But let’s face it, you had the suspicions or you wouldn’t have been “looking.” You had a crack in your positive mental attitude bubble.

Written by Raisinberry

Someone once said that there is a little bit of “BS” is in every sales presentation, and they weren’t talking about better service. Perhaps some time ago, Mary Kay’s sales environment and recruiting system might have been pure as the driven snow, but something has gone terribly awry in the last few decades of “enriching women’s lives”.

The symptoms of it are easy to see, the “why” of it, more difficult. In many ways, what has happened to our economy as a whole is reflected by Mary Kay in microcosm. In the simplest words possible, Mary Kay opted for quick and easy profit by any means possible, instead of by thorough training and laborious development of personnel in time honored professionalism.

This lies in Mary Kay are not restricted to consultants, directors, and national sales directors. The husbands regularly get in on the action, trying to add an air of legitimacy to the “business.” Sure… if the husband says it’s legit, then it must be! The following untruths come from a letter signed by the husband of a Mary Kay nsd:

• I have never run across a business opportunity such as this where someone can work part-time or full-time, depending on their own wishes, name their own hours so they can be home with children if they desire, spending $100.00 minimum to get into the business and have a 90% guarantee buy-back on all products they purchase thorugh Mary Kay, if returned within the first year of becoming a consultant.

From a Pink Truth critic:

If you spent as much time and effort in your own business rather than running down Mary Kay you may find yourself as successful as the many thousands of women who do direct sell Mary Kay products. The company has changed my life and many other womens lives I know. I support my husband, 2 children and pay off a mortagage all through my business.

Why have I been so successful, because I believed in myself, and the products. I find many of your comments are obviously coming from bad experiences resulting from no self discipline, effort and time that is required to successfully manage your own business. Mary Kay do not suck people in, you are all criticising something you really dont seem to know alot about. With any Independent business you get out of it what you put in. Maybe you should look at yourself rather than the company!!??

Bad Mary Kay husbands often have the fatal flaws of logic, reason, and common sense.  They’re considered “bad” because they’re not supposed to point out that their wives aren’t making any money (or very little) in Mary Kay. They’re not supposed to complain about the mounting credit card debt. They’re not supposed offer up the logic that it makes no sense to place a $1,000 order just to meet a minimum required for a DIQ to stay in qualification.

How wrong and unsupportive to suggest that Mary Kay is a losing proposition! Anything resembling reason and common sense is the husband’s attempt to hold you back, or not let you have anything for yourself, or control you, or any of a number of sinister-sounding intentions.

A former Mary Kay sales director shares how her her story was like a gambling addition, waiting to hit the jackpot with the big commission check. 

My journey to the end began the day I was on the computer looking for something and I stumbled upon Pink Truth. It was a shock to see this because I thought everything about MK was great. It was like a splash of cold water. At first I was angry but I kept coming back because deep in my gut I knew there was some truth to what was being written. The doubts started. So of course I went to my SSD and she told me, “never look at that again. It is poison and it will ruin you.”

But I also knew the reality of being a MK director. DIQ was absolute hell. I said and did things I never thought I would so that I could be the “find a way, make a way” type woman and I naively believed that once I became a director, I would have arrived to all my success. Because most of the women I signed up that last month came in to do a one time order, I did not have a unit. I did not really have a team. I was also deep in credit card debt, because I made up the difference each month chasing the mirage of my MK dream.