I WAS A TEENAGE MARY KAY CONSULTANT
Feb 25 '01
The Bottom Line All the ladies who are independent, please throw your hands up at me.
Two months ago a girl I knew from school invited me to a Mary Kay party she was having. I was delighted at the idea of a vulgar holiday from my pseudo-liberal trappings. I expected a woman who had celebrated her 39th birthday for the last ten years, a woman who would be named Marge, who modeled herself after Helen Gurley Brown, she would drive the infamous Mary Kay Pink Cadillac, she would paint our faces with pancake cover-up, cat-eyes, glossy lips with colors long past "retro"; and then... if I was lucky, give us a lesson on hair-teasing.
When I got there I was dismayed to see the Mary Kay lady was not only not driving a pink Cadillac, she was only a couple years older than me. And her make-up and hair were... quite subdued to say the least. Her name was Jessica and she looked horrified when I told her I wanted to wear green eye shadow with blue eyeliner and bright red lipstick, hmmpf.
First she showed us a picture of her a year ago when she "looked sooo terrible" and gave us a sob story of her bout with terribly uneven skin. Then a spiel about how Mary Kay has made her the even-toned princess/salesgirl we see today and gave us an explanation of why it is essential that we wear make-up every day (a friend of Chris Bickel's perhaps?).
Then we gave ourselves facials while she gave a presentation on the history of the company of Mary Kay and told the story of how The Lady Mary Kay struck out on her own from an oppressive and unappreciative department store to start her own company that allows woman to be independent while
"having fun and spending time with other women". It seemed almost... subversive! I was so intrigued with the idea of women being financially autonomous while fueling other women's insecurities, I asked endless
questions, "Have you met The Mary Kay?" "Where does she live?" "Does she tour?" "What colors does she wear?" Indeed I asked so many questions Jessica decided my curious nature would make me the ideal Mary Kay Lady, oh my! She invited me to join her at a "Success Meeting", a gathering of local Mary Lay ladies to talk about the week they have had and exchange tips, hints and hugs. Ooh! I went out and bought a new outfit to impress the Mary Kay ladies.
Jessica picked me up promptly at five and whisked me off to the three-star hotel where they have their weekly Success Stories. We got there early and helped her The Area's Supreme Mary Kay Lady set up her presentation which involved a table covered in pink chiffon, confetti, small novelty containers of perfume samples, and a boombox blasting the "Days of Thunder" soundtrack.
Jessica turned me over to the ASMKL who told me all about how she had been lured from the glitz world of door to door Tupperware sales to the glamorous life of Mary Kay cosmetics. She then administered a test to see if I could cut it as a Mary Kay lady. The test consisted of about 10 "Yes or No" questions like "Is Your Family Important to You?", "Do You Like Being Around Other People?" and "Do You Feel that You are Busy Most of the Time?". As I carefully read over the questions she explained the mission statement of Mary Kay cosmetics was to build your life as such: Faith First, Family Second, Career Third and explained about the costs of becoming a Mary Kay Lady.
First you have to spend $100 to be trained and for an extra $5 you can get the video of the training session (with role-playing!). Then you are "strongly suggested" to start out your inventory with $700 wholesale (retails for a little under $2,000) which you can sell back to the company for 90% if you decide ($800 later) that the Mary Kay Lady lifestyle is not for you. Until this point I had been completely caught up in the intrigue and romance of Mary Kay, I began to imagine what I would look like driving a pink Cadillac and how much fun it would be to put on make up and talk about facials all day and GET PAID! But as soon as she said "$700" it was like the record scratched and the music suddenly stopped playing. The rest of our interaction went like this:
Area Supreme Mary Kay Lady: How many children do you have?
Me: Well, none.
ASMKL: *frowns* Well that's ok, how long have you been married?
Me: Well, I'm not married...
ASMKL: I see... Well don't worry... Let's see how you did on your test.
Apparently you only need 3 correct answers to pass and I did! Nonetheless I was beginning to feel out of place and uncomfortable I could sense they knew I was just a punk girl who didn't belong at their Success Story. Thankfully the other mid-level Mary Kay ladies were starting to trickle in. They all wore the same designer-knock off dress suits and fake jewelry. I was rather disappointed to see that the oldest lady was no more than 45, they all wore muted colors, and not one of their hair-do's exceeded 3 inches upward. Phooey.
I think Jessica's punishment for bringing me was that she had to take everyone's inventory sheets and put them into The Area Supreme Mary Kay Lady's log-book. I looked through them as Jessica hastily scrawled down
all their weekly numbers. The group was about 15 women and their weekly totals ranged from $20 - $6,000!
The official Success Story experience was even more surreal, they each were given 5 coupons redeemable for a "free hug" and they are required to write a personal note on the back of each one and "redeem" them by the end of the meeting. I got two! A raven-haired beauty passed me a coupon that read: "You're so pretty, I hope to see more of you! Love, Naomi", so clearly my night was already a success.
That week's Story boasted a new Mary Kay Lady to the klan! The woman who had recruited the newbie received a gift from ASMKL and then they all read a poem to each other and hugged! Can you imagine a world where every time you got a new job or a promotion your boss hugged you, showered you with
gifts, and read poetry to you at staff meetings?
The next three hours were spent comparing weekly numbers, hugging, brainstorming ways to get men to host Mary Kay parties, and talking about a "revolutionary" new product that cleanses-masks-tones ALL AT THE SAME TIME, ba-dam!
Afterwards Jessica and I went out to Denny's with Charlene (Mary Kay Lady for 3 three years), Dave (Charlene's boyfriend), and Katie (Mary Kay Lady for 2 weeks). Most of the meal was spent talking about Katie's new boyfriend who she met on the internet and what features and color interior they would get when they earned their Pink Cadillacs. When I asked
Charlene when she planned on quitting her day job at a fabric store she began to sulk and the conversation reached a grinding halt. Oops.
I guess I can only blame my own naiveté for being so disappointed to learn that you advance through Mary Kay Cosmetics by bringing in more Mary Kay Ladies, not necessarily by your ability to move the product or by any other unique quality you may possess. The whole experience felt more like buying a used car than being liberated from the clutches of "proper employment". I'm still quite drawn to the idea of buying cosmetics from Mary Kay because these women believe this is truly their path to financial independence and it's one of the dying areas where people visit you in your home to bring you nice things.
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