Written by Parsons Green

We have discussed retired national sales director Linda Toupin many times here on Pink Truth. Linda started with Mary Kay in 1982 and became a director in 1983. She was appointed to the position of nsd in 2000 and reached the mandatory retirement age in 2019.

National sales directors continue to have their own units while they are nsds, as this is how they replenish their first line directors. At retirement, the nsd chooses where her unit members go. Naturally, Linda passed her unit members to her daughter Elizabeth (Katie) Toupin. You can read more about Katie here.

Since inheriting her mom’s unit of over 400 consultants, Katie has been a top ten director in the Ruby Seminar every year. You can see how this works…. you are given a gigantic unit, and suddenly you’re a big winner. Yes, Linda is making it clear here that it is HER unit (30 years!) that Katie is “winning” with.

But does Kate really function as the sales director over the unit, or is she merely a figurehead while her mom Linda continues to run things? Anecdotal evidence over the last several years makes it clear. Katie is a busy lady, and her true involvement in Mary Kay appears to be minimal. She shows up at seminar each year to collect her awards, but Linda seems to be the one putting in all the work on a daily basis.

You see, before Mary Kay, Katie was part of an alt-country band named Houndmouth. After leaving that band in 2016, she tried to start a solo career. As Katie:

• She organized a GoFundMe to record a Blink 182 Album
• She created a Kickstarter for another album (This is after she had been a million dollar director three times with her inherited unit)
• She started another GoFundMe to buy Mary Kay gifts for the elderly.
• She bought a farm and tried to make it an animal sanctuary with yet another GoFundMe.

In 2024, Katie introduced her country singer alias….  Candi Jenkins. She also sold her farm to Linda. Later that year, she announced her retirement as Katie. She’d be performing only as Candi going forward. She removed her music from all the digital platforms.

Katie then created a Patreon for Candi with membership options currently at the $1, $10 and $20 levels. (She also used to sell feet pics there as well). She also used it to raise money to buy a van for touring.

At Seminar 2025, Katie took to the stage as the final queen of the Ruby Seminar. Ruby was then disbanded, and Katie’s unit moved over to Diamond. Even though she’s retired, Linda kept discussing Mary Kay on social media in posts about the importance of having face to face interaction with a consultant as well as the multi generational benefits a Mary Kay career offers.

At the end of May 2026, Katie was the #4 ranked director in the diamond unit. June totals are not released until consultants gather for seminar, so we don’t know exactly where she ended up. Diamond Seminar was held August 8, 9 and 10 in Fort Worth.

But something has happened!

Linda’s last post about Mary Kay was on July 1st. She was upset that the company requires a disclaimer on any social media post involving the Mary Kay car. She deleted the post after a few hours. Then on July 6, Katie posted on social that she was looking for a concert opportunity in Colorado on August 8 and 9th. Why did she want shows the first two days of seminar? She did book a show, and only had one other date for August.

It’s no secret that Katie doesn’t have much interest in Mary Kay, but when seminar comes, she gets up on stage and does the dog and pony show. The commission checks she and Linda share make it worthwhile! Linda is supposed to be retired and not actively working Mary Kay or having a unit, but everyone has turned a blind eye to her running Katie’s unit for years. Could it be that Mary Kay finally said… enough????

Diamond seminar came and went. The top three directors were Rachel Zarling, Deborah Bailye, and Shelly Palen. I’ve not been able to find any social media post with complete list of the remaining 7 members of the Top 10 Circle of Excellence.

And then I realized… I haven’t seen Linda post anything about Seminar either. I don’t think she went.

I then had a hunch and tried to pull up Katie on the consultant locator. I could not find an active Mary Kay page for her her Mary Kay name of Elizabeth Toupin or any of the other names she uses. Is Katie no longer a Mary Kay director?

I reached out to some fellow sleuths, and they couldn’t find an active consultant page for Katie either. One of them still has access to InTouch and couldn’t see anything for Katie after June. (It could be that they don’t report any June results until seminar is over).

Could Katie have finally decided she was tired of the Mary Kay life? Or could Mary Kay have made that decision for her and Linda?