Younique and facebook

[Paddington68]

One fo my friends has recently started selling this stuff - Younique make-up.
On Facebook she has become this embodiment of positivity, lots of quotes, lots of photos. Then she does these videos about the product and her happy, happy life.
I know that in real life she doesn't have a happy, happy life and we (she and I) have talked previously about how other people's happy, happy, facebook can be damaging to mental health or hide mental health issues.
AIBU to think younique is like a cult and tell her to stop the pretending?

Ok... BAB Let me break this to you gently, dear.
Until the end of last year, I was a Younique presenter for 3 years. Now, if you can do the maths, you'll know that means I joined when they were still shiny new to the UK. I joined back before they had European distribution. When I joined, orders were sent from the US and took an average of 2 weeks to arrive. We were also subject to NFS rules and order amount restrictions. Despite the NFS, our US uplines told us that no one but Younique would know that and we should do fairs, buy the stock in because people won't place orders at a fair to wait 2 weeks minimum for delivery. So we bought that stock. I did one fair with 2 other presenters (both since left) between us we had around £1800 in stock because other fairs had proven popular. You know how much we sold that day? Go on, have a guess.
I did another fair on my own. Guess how much I sold there?
I promised to break this gently to you, so here goes:
Unless the team you have under you has 900 THOUSAND people in it as a minimum, you will never make a huge amount of money. To make the claims you did, your team would need to have 1000 people all actively buying each month. I'm going to bet you don't have that many people under you. You won't even have that many customers because, be honest, why would you pay £23 for the 4D (which isn't even an everyday mascara) or £19 for the Epic (again, not an everyday mascara) when other brands are either cheaper and better quality that can be used everyday or, if you want to splash out, Chanel's mascara that does an identical job to the 4D costs £28 and is actually a luxury/high end brand?
So, let me reiterate this for you:
I did not fail through not trying hard enough, as so many of your "Y-sisters" will claim. I did everything, and I do mean everything, that I was told to by my upline. I completed every challenge she set, I alienated myself from family and friends for that company.
You do not have your own business. That's a lie. Don't perpetuate it. If you want a business, set up your own, don't be a self employed sales rep.
Oh, I was also in that documentary and can back up every single claim I made. Unlike you, I am also willing to post the evidence for my claims publicly.

In addition to the BBC documentary, there’s a fab podcast about MLMs called The Dream. Well worth a listen. www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/the-dream

flopsyandflim
I agree. The body shop seems to just be reps selling the same products as the stores. But sometimes there's reps special deals that don't run in stores.
I seem to remember mums doing body shop parties at home and there'd be the Tupperware lady who's drop the catalogue off.
I'd be intrigued to see how the body shop at home compares to other MLM companies in terms of commission, building teams etc.

Am morbidly fascinated by the scams that are MLMs. Thanks for the recommendations for the BBC doc and podcast (I’m obsessed with podcasts recently, even if they do sooth me to sleep).

There is also a v interesting Netflix full length (c 90m) expose on Herbalife which will make your blood boil. Well worth a watch.

I have 2 fb friends who sell it. I watch the videos out of morbid fascination!

One has never tried to sell me anything, the other messages me to try to recruit me. I said I have a full time job and earn enough money thank you. That didn't deter her though.

Then tried to sell me the new 4D mascara. I wear eyelash extensions 🤷🏼‍♀️

The 4d mascara. What exactly is supposed to be the 4th dimension there? Time?

Have a look at this thread on Money Matters - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/3583173-Bot-Watch-50-watching-the-mighty-fall This is the latest of 50 threads on the subject. Everything you need to know and more about pyramid trading, AKA MLM.

The bots lose all sense of self respect and dignity and reason and would lie and sell their soul for a sale or pulling some poor sucker into it. As an example:

Aloe Vera bot: Do you want to come to a party - this stuff is so great.
Friend: No thanks I'm really too busy at the moment.
AV bot: Aww you need to relax, come to my AV party.
Friend: No, we've just been told daughter has cancer.
AV bot: Just what you need then, aloe vera cures cancer.
Friend: Fuck off.

@popehilarious I have no idea. I guess that, as they've peddled the 3D for years (which was a bit crap, to be polite, and a faff to put on), the whole "amazing concept of lengthened and volumised lashes in just one step!" could be considered revolutionary and 4D? Despite the minor detail of every other make up company out there offering volumising and lengthening mascara that only has one step for years. But we'll just gloss over that.
The same way they glossed over the fact that their "revolutionary, game changing" Royalty Hydrating Mask was burning peoples faces in January 2018 and pulled it after complaints from the presenters before it even got to general launch of 1st February 2018. And unless someone only joined Younique after that, they would be lying if they said otherwise as I actually have one of the hydrating masks (never used it after reading the complaints). But they have a habit of "game changing" products just being old products with a new name. There's a £50 serum that's had You.ology slapped on it. When I first joined, it was the uplift eye serum. When they launched the Royalty range, they changed the name to beauty lifting serum. Now it's the You.ology serum.
But, this is Younique where you question the decisions of the Messiahs the founders at your peril.

Out of all the people I have seen try it within my friends only one has made success and they are pretty much the most popular person in our town beforehand and it is entirely recruitment.

Should be illegal

Thanks for your post Jasmin. I would be interested to see if BABS replies to you. You could both have a fascinating too and frow chat about your relative experiences.

So glad you're finally out of it though.

BABS I too am "in education" and it seems a breeding ground for recruitment. When one of my colleagues starting behaving differently and raving about make up (not Younique) I was baffled to be honest. What the actual fuck was going on? A bit of research into her MLM and I was shocked, what is a professional woman with the huge responsibility of educating young children doing getting excited about mascara etc and being duped into believing that she is a "bossbabe" or "business owner". FFS!

Thank heavens that most colleagues, after some made the usual "pity purchases" ignored her weird fb ditzy MLM posts, and just replied to her normal ones. Its been nearly a year since she has posted MLM rubbish so we are all hoping she is over it. No one will dare to ask... we are all grateful she's back to normal again.

I meant to write "too and fro"

Bossbabe makes me cringe as does paying my own bills. The BBC doc was really good in getting to the root and misogyny of mlm.

interesting as The Body Shop are starting to do the same thing as few of my friends are now selling that to. I wonder if will be the way retail goes?

Body Shop At Home isn't new and has been going years. My sis was involved about four years ago after switching from another mlm called "partylite" she lost money doing both.

The Body Shop At Home is slightly misleading in my opinion as it's the same type of business model as other mlms (it was when when my sil did it) and because people think it's ran the same as an actual Body Shop they don't realise the mlm structure so easily, but the spam positing and bossbabe shit was exactly the same as any other mlm.

Watch the BBC documentary about it. They literally tell them that you not believing them is you trying to tear down their success and they should cut you out. It's awful and only something like 300 in the world are making the top money, with something like 90% earning less than £20 a month

This thread fascinates me.

BAB - I suspect you are long gone, but can you please explain how your parties work? Do you demonstrate the products etc? IF so, how much stock do you have to hold, as it can't possibly be the initial outlay that you idntified. Also - you sell through the web site - do the company pay for that web site or do you pay yourself? Lastly, do the people who buy from you use the products, or hold their own parties?

Trying to get my head around it all!

I doubt BAB will respond they are told not to engage with people who dont support the company.

I know someone who does it. One of the master trainers in the UK. Always saying how we can all do it, how we can work from home and stay with our kids, go on luxury holidays, earn a full-time wage while doing very part time hours.

A few do make a success of it but the reality is many don't and its misleading and unfair to say otherwise.

@gottastopeatingchocolate I can answer some of the questions, but not all of them. Regarding the website, every presenter has their own "page on the Younique website. Basically, the layout is identical, just the name at the top changes. You don't pay for the website, but that's probably another cost to come out of the price of the products.
Parties: There's 2 ways of doing a party. Either the presenter hosts one to earn Y cash for themselves (and spam everyone on fb/insta/other social media) before buying enough product for themselves to earn the y cash (which won't be anywhere near what they've just spent in real money. You also used to get so many half price products, but they stopped that last year at some point). Or they can get someone else to host the party and alienate their friends by spamming the link before the host and presenter buy enough product to earn y cash.This is the less risky route for the bot as they have someone to share the cost with so don't have to spend as much of their own money, but will only get commission on products sold and one less friend.

Sorry if it's been said (don't have time to read thread) but there's a docu on iPlayer about multi level marketing and I'm sure this is on it. Yes it's like a cult!

It's a cult I lost my friend to Herbalife as she cut me out because I wasn't positive as she put it. Great documentary recently on BBC eye opening.

Wow I don't think any of us could ever dare dream of reaching the dizzy heights of posting a parcel to Australia

I won’t buy anything from a company that indulges in MLM of any kind. For example, I actually really like Neal’s Yard Remedies but they do this too so I no longer buy their products. I used to really enjoy Organised Motherhood’s content on Instagram but she has become one of their Hunbots and frequently tries to flog their products on there, using the hashtag Ad-own business. It’s incredibly sad to see otherwise intelligent women genuinely be brainwashed into thinking they own their own business when they have no involvement in creating the actual products they are selling. I can’t believe MLM is still legal when it basically uses the same model as pyramid selling.

Does anyone know if Tropic is MLM? I seem to know loads of women doing this - and have bought a few products myself which are actually very good (me and my DC have hyper sensitive skin and the body washes, bubble bath and deodorant are the only things that don't send my skin wild). I asked a friend doing it and she said that "uplines" don't make money from the sales of their "downlines", but the more they recruit the bigger commission they get and they can never reach more than 32.5% I think it was (standard entry commission is 25%). Is this actually true?

If you divide the cost of a luxury holiday and a white Mercedes by the cost of a mascara ... that's a lot of mascara to sell. Doesn't take rocket science to see you're not going to make your millions from selling to F&F or F&F of F&F.

Yes Tropic is mlm.