PTC, if you start a traditional business and grow it to the point of employing others, everyone on your team makes positive income.

In MLMs like Mary Kay, it is impossible for any downline to be profitable as a whole. The downline must lose money in the aggregate for the upline and the corporation to turn a true business profit. This is the nature of all pay-to-play endless-chain recruiting schemes like MK. You can look it up for yourself.

How do you respond to this unfortunate reality? I see two possibilities:
1) You were not aware that MK uses this type of exploitative system
2) You know but don’t care about the inevitable harm to every downline

If 1, please read up on these schemes. Just search on “Pay-to-play endless-chain recruiting schemes”. You will quickly discover that MLMs like Mary Kay fall firmly into this category. You will also discover that these schemes are highly exploitative. Note: Mary Kay does not pay you commissions until you recruit a downline! Recruiting is a requirement to be eligible to receive commissions in MK.

If 2, shame on you.

Note: You can bet the big moneymakers in MLM fall into category 2.

Hobby vs real profit making business. There is a huge difference, dear. You were promised a pink Cadillac, executive income, etc. for part time hours. Where is it? You THINK you have friends. Wait until you quit, then see who will answer your calls.

I stumbled onto this site the other night and honestly I don’t get it.

I wonder what you were looking for that your director couldn’t help you with. The reason that (general) you “don’t get it” is that is started to make you think.

It just sounds like a bunch of people who tried Mary Kay for five minutes and then quit when it got a little hard. Of course you didn’t make money if you weren’t willing to actually WORK the business.

Then you need to actually read the “I-Stories” told my the many successful women who actually were part of the elite, the sash-wearers, the stage strutters, the stars, bars and cars earners.
However since Mary Kay Wagner Rogers Eckman Weaver Miller Hallenbeck Ash’s company only tracks orders not sales, how much money do you make? According to MKI, not a lot.
https://www.marykay.ca/-/media/images/mk/united-states/canada/esuite/footer/canadian-statement-of-typical-participant-earnings-2025.pdf

People act like Mary Kay tricked them or something. Nobody forced you to sign up. Nobody forced you to order product. You chose it.

Then why does Cleta have or used to have a public You Tube where she explains how to get her new recruits to order the $3,600? She attempted to copyright strike Erin Bies over her response video to it. Not to mention needing to be a “team player” in the Foundation Challenge.
https://www.pinktruth.com/2026/06/25/foundation-contest/

That’s called personal responsibility which apparently isn’t very popular around here.

It’s very popular here which is why those ladies involved took back their power and returned everything they could and left.

I’ve been a consultant for almost 2 years now and I’m doing just fine. I’m not driving a pink Cadillac or anything but that’s not even the point.

Unless you are prepared to financially, emotionally and religiously manipulate other women, you will never be a Cadillac driver.

I’ve met some amazing women and made some extra money on the side.

They’ll only be amazing while you are their willing ATM. However, the chances are you have already lost money but no-one expects you to make any kind of book-keeping so just how much profit or loss has occurred is impossible to track.

What bothers me is the constant negativity.

Perhaps you should look at who is being shown as most of the “negativity” is the screenshots from director’s groups.

Every single thing about Mary Kay is supposedly evil according to this site. The products, the meetings, the recognition, even the friendships.

Again, that is not the truth. The women involved have frequently spoken out about their positive experiences.

At some point you have to ask if maybe the problem wasn’t the company but the people involved.

I realise that you are implying that we are the ones at fault but it also reads that the up-lines bear all the responsibility, which they do have a fair share of that.

Not everyone fails.

For every one person who succeeds, 249 must fail. The odds are not in your favour.

Some people actually enjoy the business and stick with it. Maybe if some of you had a better attitude and stopped assuming everything is a scam, you might of had a different experience.

You’ve only spent 2 years in Mary Kay. These women spent longer. We can see who is struggling by what they post on their social media. We know how much the NSDs earn. We know how many are leaving.

Just saying.

You would have been better spending your time actually reading the posts here than writing this.