Throwing in the Towel on Mary Kay
Written by Parsons Green
Cindy Machado started her Mary Kay story 35 years ago. She signed up in 1990 under Pam Shaw, her former high school teacher, and quit the next year. She signed up for MK again, and became a sales director in 1993…. but she lost her unit about a year later. Cindy became a sales director again, and has hung onto the title… until now. (Get all the details on Cindy’s Mary Kay career in this article from an old issue of Applause magazine.)
35 years into her Mary Kay career, Cindy has announced that she is no longer going to focus on building her team, effectively giving up on her pursuit on the nsd title that she was never going to get. She says she’s not quitting, but she’s not going to be actively working.
Cindy has a unit of 200 consultants, primarily managed by her assistant. 40 of her consultants have been with her for over 20 years. Another 60 have been in for over 10 years. The rest of her consultants are personal use, with only 20% actively working the business.
Less than a year ago, Cindy appeared to still be “all in” on Mary Kay.
But now… even though Cindy’s income is great, and she drives a free car, she now lives on a ranch. She will be focusing on hosting retreats on the ranch. She already has one Tiny Home that is listed on AirBnB. She will build a few more, as well as converting the main home into a retreat center. She will also become a life coach.
Hopefully these new endeavors will be successful for her. Based on her track record, they most likely won’t be.
In 2019, she stated her goal was to debut as an NSD with a downline of 30 directors. She was calling this #talk30tome in honor of her 30th year.
In 2021, Cindy almost quit Mary Kay but decided to keep going. She adjusted her goals! 2022 brought a rebrand of #talk30tome where she simply wanted 30 consultants to have a great start debut.
Cindy has been dabbling in this exit for a while now. In 2023, she decided to take the cash option instead of Cadillac and changed her mind. The company then required her to requalify, which she did.
But now in 2025, she’s decided it’s time.
How many women have been suckered into Mary Kay by Cindy’s claims of success?
How many times has Cindy had to pay for a copay on that Pink Cadillac?
How many times will Cindy look back on her time in Mary Kay and wish she had done something else?
Visit the
“Cindy has a unit of 200 consultants…”
Statically speaking, MLMers need 249 in their downline before they turn a true business profit. Not sure if that stat includes “former” participants.
I wonder if by saying, “I am not leaving completely” means no longer investing time and money. She’ll still need to spend ~$1000/year to stay active to receive commission. But she is wise to stop spending more than necessary until this thing quickly withers on the vine through attrition.
I am guessing she wishes she could just sell her MK “business”. The fact that she can’t just shows it is not really a business after all.
All I can say is she must have one whopping rich husband. Ranches and tiny houses and building conversions cost A Lot Of Money. $925 is a month’s pay for some people. It’s probably more than most of her downline make in a year. It sure as hell ain’t something most people have the luxury of saying “you know what? Never mind” to. Not to mention the fact that she’s wasted 35 years chasing a dream that was never going to happen, and not very successfully.
If she’d spent those 35 years building an actual career and was retiring to her AZ ranch to start a new chapter of her life, I’d be congratulating her. However, 35 years of selling lies and using someone else’s money to give her a safety net… :: blows massive raspberry ::
All I can say is that a coaching and retreats boondoggle seems to be the accepted default for ex-huns, and I’m sure she’ll be just as successful at it as the rest of them.
https://imgur.com/a/mary-kay-income-disclosure-2023-LFdntKd
We know that most of her downline aren’t making much.
How many more life coaches and retreat centers can these women handle?
Shhh…you are not allowed to talk about the dangers of over-supply with MLMers.
Thirty-five years with very little to show for those efforts — it’s sad on the surface. Then you realize that she “built” all of that on the backs of her downline, who lost money during her quest for NSD.
I hope she has the necessary permits and such for these tiny home Air B&B buildings and “retreat center.” You’re now a commercial entity, and the building codes will be tougher.
Oh heck yeah. I work in town government, and building code enforcement and zoning spend a lot of time telling people they can’t do what they want to do with this property they bought with all these pie-in-the-sky development ideas without doing the required homework. Some have gone to court and cost the wannabe developers a lot of money they’ll never see again. And if you try to get away with it and they catch you afterwards, ouch (ie the guy who had to rip out the special, imported from Italy, restaurant literally built around it, pizza oven because it didn’t meet requirements).
Not to mention there are stringent fire codes, parking requirements, traffic studies, licensing requirements for contractors, and if you’re planning to serve food you’re suddenly subject to all the requirements and oversight required for commercial kitchens. A couple free samples for the wife aren’t going to cut it.
If she’s “in the county”, the building codes in AZ are pretty lax. But a Home Depot shed on bare dirt is not posh.
Cindy was one of Pam Shaw’s first line. I wonder if Pam retiring and passing her ’empire’ on to her son made Cindy a bit less enamored by the ‘opportunity’?
She was one of Pam’s personal recruits. She was her drill team teacher. I can’t believe Pam was able to pass the area to her son. When you watch his face during her retirement video, you can see him smirk. She’s not retiring anymore than Linda Toupin did.
A lot of top sales directors quit after their NSD leaves. Jordan Helou Eicher did when her mom retired. She’s barely a sales director now. She follows an author that wrote an anti-MLM book. She’s probably just cashing in what she built until it fizzles all the way out.
Amy Kemp, daughter of NSD Jeanie Martin, still shows up on the consultant locator as SD. But no mention of MK on her website or social media.
She’s running a coaching business and she wrote a book. No surprise.
This seems to be a trend, stepping down once your National retires. When Carol Anton retired several directors went back to being a consultant or just quit all together and became a life coach. One who comes to mind is K.T. Martin. She gave up her unit, her Cadillac and is no longer listed as a beauty consultant- now she’s a life coach.
She passed her team to her son? Is her son a director?
She did and he is!!!
If Cindy started in MK at 18, she’s only in her early 50s now. For some reason I thought she was older.
Being in MK makes them look old! It’s rough!
She signed up in 1990 under Pam Shaw, her former high school teacher, and quit the next year.
If that had been a male teacher with a former student, we’d look askance at the couple and call it “grooming”. But a female teacher recruiting a former student into an MLM isn’t?
It’s the same power and age dynamic at play.
I thought the same thing!!!!