One of our readers provided this insight on Mary Kay Cosmetics.

MARY KAY IS A SCAM which drives women into debt with their trinkets and labels them “failures” when the real issues are an unworkable, unprofitable business model and manipulative corporate culture set up for failure with unethical behavior, and no conscience.

MARY KAY is a faulty business design with lies, conning, and manipulation. Do you have any idea of the abuse at the hand of Mary Kay upon women?

MARY KAY has hidden real results, real outcomes, real expectations of earnings.

MARY KAY is a pipe dream for you which only drives THEIR profitability.

Within the world of Mary Kay, the dynamic is control. We think alike, we talk alike, we script alike, we program in the positive and regurgitate only what our upline and top directors have told us. If you suddenly awake from that indoctrination and discover you have been a willing dupe, you may be guilty of a lack of analysis, but who told you it was paralysis? We did what we were told and conditioned to do, and since the programming remains intact by the never-ending events a director must attend, they rarely get an independent viewpoint to fully assess the damage.

The “control” continues, throughout every incident of director duties. You must attend or you let the area down. (Cha ching) You must have the new line or your unit won’t order it. (Cha Ching) You must re-qualify for your car or your unit will feel like losers. (Cha ching) You must “stretch” so you can attend the luncheon…the speed of the leader is the speed of the gang. (Cha Ching) “What if I haven’t sold it?” “You’ll sell it.” Another dose of soft pressure, combined with a willingness to please, and another director bites the production bullet. (Cha ching)

All any ethical director needs to do to find out where the truth lies is to look honestly at her financials, her people, their results, and her past. Look at every team leader and up, at all the product they bought and never profited from. Look at every DIQ who was taught to order to “make production”…and upon doing that, fell deeper into debt. Look at every consultant who joined to make money and lost it instead. Look at every director placing orders to hit the minimum $4,500 wholesale production per month, over and over again. Imagine how in the world could they be selling all that product? Face that you know, they aren’t. You don’t sell what you have on your shelves. You lie to yourself to quiet your own conscience, and you condemn as unethical the directors on Pink Truth who are done with the charade.

“Listen to your NSD / director” was taught at every retreat, meeting, event, luncheon, career conference and seminar. Don’t think: Do! Keep it simple sweetie. You get 13% commission on your unit …are you really going to lose your meaningless “no value” Director title for lack of production? Come on! Put it in. You’ll sell it. This sage advice begins the “stretching” that is required for the remainder of the career path.

Wouldn’t an ethical company actually track real retail sales? All contests, unit clubs, trips, cars, quarterly stars, queens and courts are all based on wholesale ordering. Not ONE piece of seminar retail glory is actually TRUE! Ponder that a minute.

All directors go along with the premise of seminar because that is what is done. The company tracks wholesale…its easier we’re told, and every director plays the game without question. That means that it is space on credit cards that is being acquired, not sales excellence. Period. Each NSD attempts to get her downline crew to work to the last possible second, borrowing credit space, recruiting and frontloading newbies, and maximizing product purchases in a heated frenzy, having NOT ONE THING TO DO WITH ACTUAL SALES. Portions of these orders will be sold or get sold, but that’s not what seminar honors. In a word, seminar is a FRAUD!.

We chased the “dream” long past any chance of fruition. Most of us were good at it. We were encouraged to never quit. We were told the only women who fail in Mary Kay are those who quit, and since we believed, we kept going, trying every new idea to make it work. In reality, the only ones who fail are those who continue, blindly repeating the lies they were fed without ever evaluating the facts. They fail as human beings.

They do not care how many of their members are drowning in debt, on their good advice. It’s just an opportunity, they tell themselves, and they move on. No? Next. The only women making money in Mary Kay are the ones who are making it off the backs of their offspring and downline unit members. They do it the Mary Kay way…which surprisingly is the most unethical way of all. We who are the “weeded out” are happy to finally be among the clear headed women of the world who know the real definition of integrity, and have paid the price of fighting for it.

Run far away from any organization that doesn’t permit critical thought or thinking.