Serial Liars in Mary Kay
From Ashlee:
I will commend anyone for feeling led to do their research and “expose lies” that they feel would benefit the public on any subject, but I feel it’s unnecessary and unprofessional to call a large number of women “serial liars” and that the business structure is a scam.
It is unfortunate that in any business that there are going to be bad apples that give companies bad names.
I can only speak for myself when I say that I’m a former 11 year Federal Government employee (talk about a crooked scam) who just willingly left my position Last month because my Mary Kay business is doing so well for our family, soon to surpass a GS-12 pay scale.
Self employment is not for everyone, very true, and each consultant has the ability to rise above the person who shares the opportunity and business plan with her. To each their own, but my experience has been a wonderful journey, in which I’ve surrounded been surrounded by positive, educated women who wanted to create a life that revolves around their family, and not have to live a life that revolved around their career.
It is very obvious that you are also educated and have done quite a bit of research, however, only seem to be focusing on the women who have not been successful in the business or have had a negative experience due to varying reasons. To those women, I am sincerely sorry to hear about, because I have not experienced that in my 15 years of involvement with the company.
Thank you for doing what you do and exposing fraud, because I can only imagine the situations you uncover. I do want to end by saying, however, that the foundation that this company was founded on is not lies and if women will follow those principles of integrity and honesty in all aspects of their business, positive changes can come into their lives. It’s obvious that your thoughts on subject are not the same, though, by your insistent use of calling a large group of individuals who you’ve never met “scammers” and “liars” ~ so there’s no point in beating that dead horse. My point is that I love my life now and I’ve never been healthier and more financially sound.
So Ashlee has been with Mary Kay for 15 years and has just quit her job as a government employee with pay at a GS-12 level. That pay level starts at more than $74,000. After 15 years, Ashlee would have been making $90,000m most likely. So she wants us to believe that she is making about $7,500 per month with Mary Kay.
Except she’s just a consultant. So in order to make $7,500 per month, she’d have to be selling something on the order of $22,500 retail per month (if we take into account discounts and business expenses). Making her queen of everything in Mary Kay. We all know that’s not the case. Interesting that she quibbles with the use of the word liar….
Visit the
I will commend anyone for feeling led to do their research and “expose lies” that they feel would benefit the public on any subject, but I feel it’s unnecessary and unprofessional to call a large number of women “serial liars” and that the business structure is a scam.
Are you willing to find and refute one lie anywhere on the site?
It is unfortunate that in any business that there are going to be bad apples that give companies bad names.
True, his happens everywhere.
I can only speak for myself when I say that I’m a former 11 year Federal Government employee (talk about a crooked scam) who just willingly left my position Last month because my Mary Kay business is doing so well for our family, soon to surpass a GS-12 pay scale.
I doubt that’s true given what Tracy wrote as a post-script.
Self employment is not for everyone, very true, and each consultant has the ability to rise above the person who shares the opportunity and business plan with her.
Except you are not self-employed, you are a 1099 contract worker.
To each their own, but my experience has been a wonderful journey, in which I’ve surrounded been surrounded by positive, educated women who wanted to create a life that revolves around their family, and not have to live a life that revolved around their career.
Lots of people make a balanced home/work life, it’s not unique to what Mary Kay supposedly offers. Which we know from the words of directors doesn’t happen. How often has the site reported about last minute rallying cries in the late hours of the 30th/31st of the month to make production?
“…each consultant has the ability to rise above the person who shares the opportunity and business plan with her.”
You really don’t, because a percentage of what you earn for production and recruitment automatically goes to your upline. Even becoming a director doesn’t put you ahead because you’re just her offspring and to her goes the bonus.
” To each their own, but my experience has been a wonderful journey, in which I’ve surrounded been surrounded by positive, educated women who wanted to create a life that revolves around their family, and not have to live a life that revolved around their career.”
Oh goody, another MK false dichotomy: either you’re working a real job which subsumes your whole life, or you’re a MK lady living as god and June Cleaver intended. Of course it’s possible to keep a proper work life balance with a job, and we’ve seen a bajillion instances of MK taking over to the point where marriages fail and children get ignored.
I can’t help but wonder how she thought about people being called liars and scammers when she worked for the gubbermint 🤪
Wouldn’t you agree (cringe!!) that pushing the narrative of having a “real job” is toxic, devastating, has no work life balance, is a big part of the MK story? It starts all the way back with MK Ash herself, or even her mother. The company has to convince people that working “real jobs” is hopeless. Journey of the Broke. Just Over Broke. I can’t remember all the lines. I only remember it was a big deal to convince the women that they hated their “real jobs” and that a career as a MK sales director was the way to go.
I chased this story for SO LONG. I’m glad I woke up. It is sickening to me, however, the amount of time I gave this false story in exchange for time with my children when they were younger. The plus side: I don’t think they will ever get involved in an MLM company. I pray to God they’ve watched my brutal and sometimes destructive mistakes and taken down notes.
Absolutely. According to my mother and aunts, there was a huge stigma against a mother of young kids working outside the home until at least the mid 70s. Either you were a “real” mother or you were a career woman whose work took over her whole lilfe and your kids would grow up to be hoodlums and could even lead to (GASP) divorce!!!
The dark genius of Mary Kay Ash was selling the notion that you could work from within the home, making phone calls and throwing parties, which of course were what women did all day when they weren’t watching the soaps, AND earn your pin money to boot.
Absolutely. According to my mother and aunts, there was a huge stigma against a mother of young kids working outside the home until at least the mid 70s. Either you were a “real” mother or you were a career woman whose work took over her whole lilfe and your kids would grow up to be hoodlums and could even lead to (GASP) divorce!!!
That both does and doesn’t gel with my experiences as a 70’s child in the UK. Of course, my mother did the unthinkable and divorce my father over his numerous affairs once I was in school.
We had the Educated Elite women who were doctors or lawyers married to the same whose income paid for staff to raise their children from a young age.
Then there were the other Middle Class women whose husband earned enough for her to be a SAHM while still having the European holidays, cars and a phone!
The Upper Working Class who likewise could afford a SAHM but had British based holidays and one car which the husband drove.
The Lower Working Class whose mother either worked full time and had family or friends look after their children either free or at a small weekly sum. Or worked part-time after hours as a cleaner or bar staff while the husband looked after their children. They also did In Home Employment such as child-minding or piece-work. Holidays were rare and the family car-less.
When people talk about “Feminism forcing women into the workplace”, they forget that for the lower orders, women always worked, whether it was in the family concerns or for an external employer. Feminism opened up the opportunity for women to enter the so-called Professions, law, medicine as doctors not nurses, politics and more recently as the clergy or in the front lines in war.
My grandparents were working class, factories and coal miming. My grandmothers both worked in factories until they got married and then dutifully quit.
I think that since they didn’t have money they had snobbery. Ethnicity, what church you went to, how long your family had been in the area, how your kids did in school and dressed, everything was under a microscope. And they loved tearing each other down.
Not unlike MK, I gotta say.
This sounds like small town America. I grew up in a small town. Because of who my parents were, and my parents’ parents, my destiny was already set. What is ironic about that is, if you go back just one more generation – those folks were settlers in this area, so they didn’t have any status to go from above them. What did they do?? lol.
I am fascinated by this!
I remember meeting a young, beautiful woman was the star of her MK unit. Even though she just graduated with a degree in business she said “I refuse to get a get job. I will only work for myself. Jobs are the Journey of the Broke and I refuse to get one. I will only do Mary Kay. My parents are a little upset.” She debuted as a director a few months after that, but yeah, I found her narrative shocking and sad. But, then again, lots of people knew everything when they were 21/22 and just graduated from college. I wish I knew how directorship worked out for her.
Just sad, she had a business degree so there’s lots of good work she could do with that.
It is very obvious that you are also educated and have done quite a bit of research,
Talk about a back-handed compliment.
however, only seem to be focusing on the women who have not been successful in the business or have had a negative experience due to varying reasons.
There’s no “varying reasons”. It’s a simple numbers game for one person to succeed 249 others need to fail.
Here’s Mary Kay’s Canadian Income Disclosure for 2023 in case you think we are using biased numbers.
https://imgur.com/a/mary-kay-income-disclosure-2023-LFdntKd
To those women, I am sincerely sorry to hear about, because I have not experienced that in my 15 years of involvement with the company.
In 15 years you’ve never seen a “lazy looser”? Or a “quitter”? What about a “Negative Nellie”? It sounds like you are so self-involved that the priorities of other people are totally unimportant to you.
Thank you for doing what you do and exposing fraud, because I can only imagine the situations you uncover.
Another back-handed compliment.
I do want to end by saying, however, that the foundation that this company was founded on is not lies and if women will follow those principles of integrity and honesty in all aspects of their business, positive changes can come into their lives.
Mary Kay’s own “I Story” is a lie, allegedly. There’s screenshots posted of SDs out-right lying, lying by omission and twisting the truth until a tornado looks straight by comparison.
It’s obvious that your thoughts on subject are not the same, though, by your insistent use of calling a large group of individuals who you’ve never met “scammers” and “liars” ~ so there’s no point in beating that dead horse.
Several of the commentariat have spoken about their experiences with named NSDs and SDs. They have met them face to face and been lied to by those same women. Stop denigrating other women’s lived experiences because you don’t realise that it is happening to you.
My point is that I love my life now and I’ve never been healthier and more financially sound.
Just wish that the other 249 women you are exploiting feel the same.
It’s interesting that she is at the consultant level and is supposedly bringing in this amount of profit. I would want to see the actual documented financial pages. I lied to myself for years about how much money I was (not) making. When I purged my life and went through years of old paperwork, my previous years’ tax records revealed how much money I did NOT make. I continued the BS story to myself with the usual lines – It just hasn’t happened (yet). I need to be more organized. I haven’t found the right script. I need to get the virtual business going. I probably need more training. And on and on.
I appeared successful. It’s simple to appear successful! Image is easy to manipulate. It’s ironic how long it took me to figure that out, considering I was working in the IMAGE industry of cosmetics & skin care.
What’s happening below the surface is much more revealing. For example, what’s happening in your checking account, your tax returns, your credit card statements. FACTS are our friends!
Good luck Ashlee. Don’t be afraid to come back and read more here. If we were/are liars & scammers (cringe), we are in recovery.
“…just willingly left my position Last month because my Mary Kay business is doing so well for our family, soon to surpass a GS-12 pay scale.”
“Soon”. It is always “just around the corner” with these MLMs. PTC, please write back when you finally reach this milestone…and please include your Sched C or it simply did not happen.
Of those making any real money with Mary Kay, none of them are doing so through personal retail sales.
PTC, I am saddened to hear that you are leaving a job with benefits for this faux opportunity. Once this house of cards falls, please share the whole story with us. No shame…just compassion.
They’ve sweetened the pot over at Corporate. Now, members of the MK Ash National Area, when they “achieve” one of the National Courts (Court of Sales at $40,000 retail sold – $20,000 wholesale ORDERED OR if you achieve the Court of Sharing, 24 qualified consultants) You will receive – are you ready for this?? A TWENTY DOLLAR CASH REWARD.
Twenty bucks.
$20
For “selling” $40,000 retail. Or recruiting 24 people who are qualified. I KNOW, I KNOW, you already “earn” the $20,000 when you sell the $40,000 and you’ll “earn” lots of commissions on those new qualified recruits … but … twenty dollars as an incentive prize?? That isn’t even a tank of fuel. Hardly any groceries. Why even bother????? lol what a scam
Just to put it into some perspective, I can go earn $20 at my part time gig in about 1.25 hours. And that’s all I need to do – show up, punch in, do my thing, clock out. $20 on my paycheck. I don’t have to call anyone, order anything, finagle any numbers, stretch to improve, meet new people, talk on the phone, create a video, see if my credit card is maxed out, find a sitter for my kids to hold another show, … nope!
$20 lol
That’s what the consultant’s efforts are worth to them: $20
For my oldest daughter $20 cdn is her hourly rate (USD 14.80), for my younger daughter it’s $17(12.58) . Quebec’s minimum wage is $15.75 an hour. Even in our devalued economy, $20 isn’t a lot given gas is currently 159.9/l ($4.46/gallon USD).
If she was really selling $ 22,500 per month or more at Mary Kay, she would neither have the time to post on nor give a damn about anything on this website as well as being one of the top sellers worldwide. Let’s also remember that, even if she really is netting $ 7500 per month and earning more than her old government job, her new line of “work” has no health benefits and no retirement deferral, and she has to pay double Social Security and Medicare under the self-employment tax. Comparing the salary from the job to the net profit in Mary Kay can be a rather misleading comparison, even if you were already on your spouse’s health insurance.
“It is very obvious that you are also educated and have done quite a bit of research, however, only seem to be focusing on the women who have not been successful in the business or have had a negative experience due to varying reasons.”
Ma’am. The vast majority of people who join Mary Kay are not successful and/or have a bad experience because the MLM model is inherently designed for most people to never make it to the top level, even while promising everyone it’s possible and they just have to work harder and harder. When 99% of people are not achieving success and the turnover rate is so high, something is wrong, and the only common denominator is Mary Kay and MLM in general. We focus on those people here because THEY ARE THE MAJORITY BY A LOT. But their voices are silenced within the organization, because the entire thing falls apart if the veneer of sunshine and rainbows is cracked. If people with legitimate questions and concerns have to come here to get the answers they deserve, there isn’t something wrong with us. There’s something wrong with Mary Kay.
They lie like a rug and think nothing of it. They sell at a discount, and PRETEND they sold at full price and have no expenses. Liars.
Facebook is loaded with MK consultants having sales, “tax-free day”, and free shipping. They’re desperate.
You claim your Mary Kay business is exceeding your old GS-12 pay? Starting pay for a GS-12 employee is $74,441.00, with a maximum possible base pay of $96,770.00 per year. Is your net taxable income in Mary Kay (sales income minus business expenses, before SS and income taxes) anywhere near that?
If you expect us to believe that you are actually SELLING that much product, you better have receipts.
GS nurses get paid under the Title 38 pay tables, so we get a kicker for our positions. GS12, step 1 registered nurse pay for my area STARTS at $106,663 annually. We also have FERS, TSP, paid leave (including sick), benefits, and more. To make that in MK, you would have to con so many people in your unit and your team, and you would need to sell over $15,000 PER MONTH. AND you get zero benefits.
Here is the link to the pay tables. You can search by region, and the registered nurse code is 0610. (If no region is listed, it means the RN is paid at the regular GS pay table.)
https://wageandsalary.dcpas.osd.mil/BWN/WAGETitle38Schedules#
Perhaps she meant GS-2?
And even if it is anywhere near that, you pay double Social Security and Medicare, your own health benefits (unless you are on your spouses health insurance already) and the only retirement “benefit” you would have would be an IRA with no matching employer contributions. Well, if your business is incorporated it’s a little different but still you would need to earn a lot more with MK in any case to come out ahead against the government job you left. You are probably just fooling yourself.