Your friend showed you beauty cosmetic products and the business plan, but you keep wondering, “Should I become a Mary Kay Consultant?” If yes, you’ve come to the right place.
In my Mary Kay review, I will cover the below topics to help you make up your mind.
- What Is Mary Kay?
- Mary Kay Products
- How To Make Money With Mary Kay?
- Mary Kay Compensation Plan
- Mary Kay 2019 Income Disclosure
- Is Mary Kay A Scam?
- My Alternative Way to Make Money Online
I am sure you’ll get enough information to make a better decision once you read my review to the end. Without further ado, let’s get started!
Disclaimer: As the owner of Smileaffiliatesuccess.com, I have tracked down special deals for products, tools, and services mentioned herein. When you click my affiliate links on this page to make a purchase, I may get a small commission, and you will get a great bargain. This is a win-win advantage for both of us.
What Is Mary Kay?
-Summary of Mary Kay-
Product Name: Mary Kay
Founders: founded by Mary Kay Ash in 1963
Product Type: Beauty & Cosmetic MLM
Price: $30-$130 starter kit + a $200 wholesale order +quarterly quota $200
Recommend: No
Mary Kay is a beauty and cosmetic MLM company that sells makeup and skincare products to help women become confident, happy, and beautiful. It also has a business plan that distributors can make money.
In 1963, Mary Kay Ash founded the same name brand- Mary Kay to empower women while changing the business world. She built Mary Kay with only $5,000, but the sales went so well that it was reported $3.25 billion with 29,500+ Independent Beauty Consultants(IBCs) in 2018.
Mary Kay herself started with one foundation and four skincare products in 1963, and now it has more than 200+ products. As an independent beauty consultant, it’s safe to say that you won’t run out of products to sell any time soon.
What’s inside Mary Kay?
The beauty & cosmetic products and the business plan!
Mary Kay is famous for its makeup and skincare product lines, and I guess you’ve ever seen someone using or promoting them. Let’s see what Mary Kay has to offer.
Product Lines
- Skincare: Cleanser, toner/freshener, exfoliator, serum & oil, mask, moisturizer, etc.
- Makeup: Eye shadow, eyeliner, blush, contour & highlight, foundation, lipsticks, etc.
- Body & Sun: Body wash/shower gel, lotion/cream, balm, etc.
- Fragrance: Floral/fruity/masculine/woody scent
- Men’s: Daily facial wash, advanced eye cream, shaving foam, after-shave gel, facial hydrating sunscreen, etc
Does Mary Kay Product Work?
I don’t use Mary Kay myself, so I cannot give you my firsthand experience. I’ve found some users’ feedback, so you can take them as future references.
Based on Chickadvisor, the item that gets the most positive feedback is Mary Kay Gel Semi-Matte Lipstick. It ranks in the top 3 out of 1,397 lipsticks. Although it receives many good reviews, it still has the flaw that it doesn’t last long!
After the good reviews, I think we need to read some bad reviews too. Before signing up with Mary Kay, we should know both positive and negative reviews.
This is to help you gain more understanding and confidence, and you could avoid those products with bad reviews. So you won’t get yourself into trouble.
How To Make Money With Mary Kay?
The nature of MLMs is the same, and you can make money in two ways.
- Sell Mary Kay products to earn commissions
- Recruit people under you to hit group sales for extra bonuses and incentives
You won’t make money by recruiting but the sales made by you and your downlines. This is the difference between calling it a pyramid scheme and a legit MLM business opportunity.
Getting Started
You need to connect with one Mary Kay IBCs, then sign & submit your independent beauty consultant agreement. It will make you become someone’s downline inevitably. Finally, get your starter kit, and you are good to go!
There is no monthly quota. But to be eligible to buy products at wholesale prices, you must first activate with a minimum order of $200 wholesale ($400 retail).
You must then continue to purchase $200 wholesale every three months to continue to purchase products at wholesale.
Now, we can calculate the total cost of joining Mary Kay for one year.
- $30-$130 starter kit
- A minimum $200 wholesale order
- $200 in a quarter to stay active($200*4=$800)
The best is that you pay $1,030, while the worst is $1,130. I know it’s much lower than running a brick-and-mortar business, but it is still not cheap to start a business for the average Joe. And if you cannot sell Mary Kay products to anyone, you might purchase them yourself.
Other costs, such as additional training, travel, gas, food, or miscellaneous expenses, are not included, so the total cost must be higher than my calculation here.
Mary Kay Compensation Plan
Here comes the most crucial part of this article – the compensation plan!
- Retail Commissions: 50% of the retail price. If you sell a $100 product, you earn $50.
- Commissions of Team Orders: Earn 4%-13% commissions on wholesale orders of your personal referred team members.
- Team-building Bonuses: Earn $50-$100, depending on your ranks and sales requirements. Typically, the higher ranks you achieve, the more bonuses you get, but the harder the next levels require.
Ironically, I cannot find the compensation plan on the official website, and the above information is what I collected from online resources.
How Much Do You Need to Sell to Stay Active?
To stay active, you must order at least $200 of wholesale products every three months from Mary Kay for personal or promotional uses.
So, the minimum sales requirement for each month is around $67. It’s not difficult to achieve if you turn yourself into a recruiting machine and a full-time Mary Kay sales manager.
What I Liked About Mary Kay
TOP#1 Female Empowerment
At 45, Mary Kay was brave enough to build her cosmetic & skincare empire in 1963. This inspires every woman who suffers from the invisible ceiling at the workplace.
Imagine how brave she was when she first stepped out to sell her products in a world dominated by men. She is a good example and a role model for women.
TOP#2 Mary Kay Foundation
The Mary Kay Foundation was built in 1986 to fund research on cancers affecting women. In 2000, it included preventing women’s violence as one of its missions.
TOP#3 Product Development
Mary Kay has developed an R&D team with Ph.D.-level biochemists, toxicologists, microbiologists, and pharmacologists behind every product. They are serious about the quality, and all of this is science-based.
Mary Kay also claims that they don’t do any testing on animals in developing any new product, which is a good thing.
Ugly Truth About Mary Kay
TOP#1 Mary Kay 2019 Income Disclosure
There is no official income disclosure on the Mary Kay US site, but I found those numbers on the Canada site. It shows interesting numbers about the annual income every distributor made in 2019.
Mary Kay Income Disclosure Canada 2019(before expenses):
- 83.14% earned zero
- 15.14% earned $206
- 1.68% earned $20,137(Average Time to Position: 4 years)
- 0.05% earned $124,072(Average Time to Position: 15 years)
A few people made decent money, while the majority failed to make a dime in 2019.
I believe those numbers told us the cruel truth. Even if you make $206 for a year, if you minus the expense you spend on your business, you might lose money…
If you are thinking of quitting your 9-5 jobs to promote the Mary Kay business, please don’t! This is not enough to support your daily expense or the entire family. Since the low success rate, I suggest you try other methods to make extra money.
TOP#2 A Competitive & Saturated Market
When it comes to beauty and cosmetic products, you must have some brands that flash through your mind, right?
People have preferences when using certain products, and convincing others to purchase Mary Kay takes more effort. I reviewed other MLMs that offer similar products. Name a few here:
TOP#3 Extra Storage Burden
Mary Kay IBCs face excess products that they can’t make any sales. Simultaneously, they must also stay active to purchase $200 every three months.
The truth is that they buy more than they can sell and need to find a place to put all of the excess inventory. This means extra cost to them.
Who Is Mary Kay For?
Women or makeup artists! If you also have presentation, planning, or recruitment skills, you must go for it.
But, there must be other consultants competing with you. If they make one sale, it would mean you lose one sale.
If you are like me, shy and introverted, I would suggest you go online for other ways to make extra money. I will reveal mine in one minute!
Can You Make Money Selling Mary Kay?
Yes! 0.05% earned $124,072 in 2019. So, you can make money with Mary Kay. However, those people spent 15 years achieving this status.
Is Mary Kay A Scam?
No, Mary Kay is not a scam. It has beauty and cosmetic products and a business plan to help people make money. If it is a scam, I don’t think they can run the business for five decades.
Before signing up with Mary Kay, I hope you think twice before jumping into Mary Kay’s business plan.
- The low-income potential or no income for the first few years, you might need to work and sell Mary Kay products after office hours or on the weekends.
- A competitive and saturated market! There must be someone promoting Mary Kay in your region, so they get one sale, you lose one. It also takes a lot of effort to convince people to purchase Mary Kay products when they have preferred brands.
- Extra Storage Burden. If you cannot make any sales but purchase products for yourself, you will face a stockpiling issue at your place.
When it comes to making money online, there are plenty of options on the internet, such as freelancing, dropshipping, GPT sites, drop services, or affiliate marketing. Wanna know my top pick?
My Alternative Way to Make Money Online
My alternative way to make money online is through affiliate marketing instead of promoting Mary Kay in person.
Imagine you sell Mary Kay products to your friends, family, or anyone you know. Don’t you feel embarrassed or blushed? They might avoid you ever since.
Doing affiliate marketing will save you from that:
- It’s free to start your affiliate marketing business.
- You don’t need to buy physical products and sell them face to face.
- There is no monthly minimum sales quota in affiliate marketing.
- You don’t recruit people to become your downlines to build a team.
- You are not restricted to promoting one product. You can promote anything you like!
- Work on your schedules & you are your OWN BOSS!
You only need to start a blog with quality content. So every time people land on your site to read your product reviews or other articles, they will find insight and value.
If they like it, they may purchase the products or services via your links. Here come your earning potentials.
The platform I am using currently is Wealthy Affiliate. You will find all the proven-to-work training courses, every Friday night LIVE training courses, one keyword research tool called Jaaxy, 24/7 site support, and the most friendly community.
For more details or top secrets about Wealthy Affiliate, you could check my full WA review or click the below link to start your WA journey.
Wealthy Affiliate Income Proof
Here are some of the most active members from Wealthy Affiliate. Each of them did succeed in generating a sustainable income to replace their 9-5 jobs. You are more than welcome to check their stories HERE.
- I Made Over $1 Million With Affiliate Marketing.
- Can someone make a full time income promoting WA? You bet they can!
- What Does $1000 Per Day Look Like?$
- 40,000 In One Weekend
- A Very Humbling $12,803.26 Month – August Progress Report
- It’s Getting Better: $500+ in 2 Days
- Newbies Pay Attention! $5,195.20 Affiliate Check for June: Thanks WA!
- Joined the 10K Per Month Club. January Earnings $13,481.39
- New Record: $1,300+ Per DAY! Affiliate Marketing Works & Rocks!
- Made $7,395 in a WEEK: First Black Friday Results!
I hope you enjoy this review and you are more than welcome to share ideas or leave your comments below. I will reply as soon as I can, thanks.
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Hi, Matt,
You did a good job here, I am sure all the information you have put together here will help many of the females out there looking to make a final decision if to go with Mary Kay business opportunity or not.
I have personally tried this type of business in the past with other cosmetic companies like Avon and Oriflame, but I found it a little difficult to do because I am an introvert like you 🙂
With the rapid development of informational technology nowadays, I have seen many of the MLM companies are leveraging the internet potential to make this business easier to run.
Do you have any idea if Mary Kay actually offers to its beauty consultants instruments like a personal website, or a sales funnel?
I appreciate your feedback on this.
Best Wishes,
Natalie
Hi Natalie,
Thanks for the feedback, I love we are same on Mary Kay at some points. With advanced information technology, MLMs leverage it to make selling and promoting easier than ever. I check again whether Mary Kay provides personal websites for all IBCs, and the answer is “Yes!”
On Mary Kay’s website, they mention “You’ll have access to your very own Mary Kay® Personal Web Site, your digital personal assistant myCustomers®, the Mary Kay InTouch® website just for Independent Beauty Consultants, the Mary Kay® Virtual Makeover App, eCatalogs, social media tools and more! ”
You are welcome to check HERE if you are interested.
Cheers,
Matt