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?

I've got a lovely friend who has just started selling Arbonne via Facebook etc. She's such a fabulous girl, and so massively fits their recruiting profile - recently separated, single mum, struggling for money etc. It's really sad.

PinkGlitter123 there’s a way to find out if your friend is telling the truth or not about making a good living from Younique (she will be lying trust me, it’s fake it ‘til you make it, she’s encouraged by her upline to post as if she has an amazing lifestyle, to pretend the holiday her husbands salary is paying for was purchased from her MLM income, etc.). Anyone can go on younique’s site and search an area for local presenters and it tells you their ‘status’: the only people making anything close to (minimal) money from it are known as black status, it’s a big deal to reach black status as you need to have recruited potentially hundreds of other suckers underneath you.

And get this: even a black status hun earns less than they would waitressing.

Read this www.talentedladiesclub.com/articles/how-much-can-you-really-earn-as-a-younique-black-presenter/

If your friend is less than black status she’s earning even less than this. It’s all lies. And there’s no telling how much of her ‘sales’ were purchased by herself (you have to sell a certain amount each month to keep your status as it resets every month, people want to keep their high status as it’s higher commission, so they get desperate and place orders themselves to keep their status hoping they’ll flog them later, only to find nobody will buy cheaply made extortionately priced tat that’s going out of date)

It’s a pyramid of lies. She may be your friend but you can’t trust a word that comes out of an MLM rep’s mouth. It’s part of the game. You could ask to see her payslips but she’d never show you (and to be fair even they conceal how much of the ‘income’ is from her buying product herself).

The lady who I know definitely does make a good wage and living out of it but as I said, she's in the minority and is one of the "purple sellers" or in the top range (can't be sure on the exact colour). Her husband is even thinking of giving up his job as she is doing so well. Yet she has had women posting on her page saying that her life is not reality or do able for most and that they wished they hadn't got involved with the company.
I have to admit I do hate the live videos gushing over customers and crying, the "Huns" and "Hello darling!" for everyone that pops up on the live videos as well as "You can be just like me too! #livingmybestlife #workfromhomemumma . It's not for everyone and shouldn't be sold as such. A hobby on the side maybe but not a "This will change yours and your families lives!" theme that runs through most of the posts. If it were that easy we would all be doing it!

Posts everyday encouraging people to sign up saying they can have the luxury holidays and cars and quit their jobs if they just took a leap of faith and signed up. Genuinely she seems to do well out of it, very well.

She almost certainly doesn't. They're told to broadcast all these claims and even how to use pictures of exotic destinations to pretend they're there when the reality is they're stuck at home.

Just seen above post, she is one of the black status reps and does make a lot of money/earns a lot of luxuries and treats. I agree with everything else you said though

To the PP who said she had a couple of friends doing well enough to get the company cars... that’s a scam too. It’s a really clever way to tie someone even more tightly to the MLM.

The ‘car bonus’ isn’t a car, it’s a cash payment each month that you’re expected to use towards leasing a car (a specific car you must slap MLM logos on), only the lease is taken out in your name, and if your sales drop below a certain level you lose the cash payment. Of course you’re still left with an expensive lease car you’re signed into that you can’t afford unless you remain active in the MLM. It’s a great way to motivate reps into staying active and putting enormous pressure on their downlines to sell sell sell, as you can’t make enough money to maintain the car bonus without your underlings selling like crazy and if they don’t you lose your car payment.

MLMs are clever. Nothing is ever for the benefit of the participants. Yet you honestly see grown women on social media squealing because they ‘made it to the car bonus!’, going to a dealership and taking out a ridiculously pricey lease on a luxury car they can’t afford but that will sink them into debt if they don’t keep on with the MLM. It’s really fucking predatory. If it was truly a car bonus the MLM would take on the lease. But of course they don’t.

www.talentedladiesclub.com/articles/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-mlm-car/

“So, to sum up, to qualify for payments towards a white Mercedes Benz, Arbonne reps must buy or lease a car in their own name, and provide proof they are displaying the Arbonne emblem in three places on it. They must also maintain their rank and qualifying volume of sales. And Arbonne can change the rules on this at any time they wish.”

What will it take for MLMs to be properly looked into and hopefully stopped? What was the point of Ellie's (excellent) documentary, really, if nothing will be done?

That's awful about the cars, Emerald!

I'm guessing they have to pay for their own travel etc to trips like the Vegas trip people from a certain MLM are currently on then?

The lady who I know definitely does make a good wage and living out of it

How do you know PinkGlitter123? Are you just going from her social media posts? Have you seen her income statement? Are you privy to her credit card statement and other debt?

Her husband is even thinking of giving up his job as she is doing so well.

This is a common hun line and total bullshit. Likely it’s her husband’s income keeping them afloat. It’s a common refrain: ‘I’m thinking of retiring my husband!’. Just spend a bit of time on Facebook searching for younique and you’ll soon see. It’s all part of the show, pretend you’re doing so well you can provide financial security for your family and retire your loved ones. It’s all fake.

It’s hard for you to see because she’s your friend, but you are exactly the sort of audience she wants: someone who believes what she’s saying without doing any independent research at all, who takes her wild claims at face value instead of with a critical eye: she says she’s earning loads, you believe it. The treats? The holidays are scams where you pay for your own flights and accommodation usually and are purely events designed to indoctrinate you further not actual holidays, the car I’ve addressed above, the cheap little trinkets like key rings and handbags mass produced cheap tat they dangle like carrots if you just sell one more huge order this month (to someone else or yourself it doesn’t matter).

Read what I posted above about even black status presenter incomes if you’re curious.

Popcorntwice it depends on the scheme, but some MLMs pay your travel and many don’t. The main problem is how much you’re expected to sell to go on them. People end up sinking thousands of their own money or going into debt to place order after order to ‘earn’ enough to be able to go on the holiday (which isn’t really free then is it if you’ve had to work however many hours making sales or spending your own cash on orders to achieve it), it’s usually more of a teambuilding thing to indoctrinate them further, peer pressure as you’re surrounded by so many other huns. The cruises are the worst as you’re literally a captive audience for the many seminars and training sessions. To qualify for the LulaRoe cruise for example you have to sell $12k of leggings per month for six months in the year leading up to the cruise. You and your downlines of course. When you consider how many people (with LulaRoe especially as they don’t allow you to buy a specific item, they make you buy boxes and job lots of random clothing and then try sell what you’ve been given so you have lots of stock sat around that’s ugly and nobody will buy) buy shit loads of leggings that are sat in their garage at home just to qualify for the cruise you soon realise it’s not free at all. Just a dangling carrot. But it’s treated with such reverence in the schemes, a way to feel special and to feel you’ve been successful.

While nobody seems to notice that if you really were doing well financially from your pyramid scheme you could buy your own cruise at a time and place of your choosing for you and your family.

This is certainly eye opening.
I just thought she was one of the lucky ones but maybe not going by what you have said. She is always talking about how much she loves the company and how it has changed her life enabling her to stay home with her kids. How she earns a full time wage on very part time hours. How she can make money without doing anything (people making orders on her online account). Then there are the 'generous freebies" such as the cars, the holidays and the designer handbags.
I did think it was all a bit too good to be true but assumed she was one of the lucky ones so this thread has been very revealing.

PinkGlitter123 and that’s exactly why it’s so important for people to continue talking about MLMs and exposing them for the predatory, fucked up, waste of time, relationship destroying pyramid schemes they are. I think many of us find it hard to believe anyone could be such a bare faced liar to their friends and families and take everything at face value. But you simply can’t with someone in an MLM. You can tell when they’re lying as their lips are moving.

All those statements and aspirational meme pictures are provided by the mlms to copy and paste. They all say the same!

Talking about Arbonne when I was doing my training in beauty we had several people who sold skincare in just for educational purposes. Some were MLM some were big Facebook companies.

The Arbonne rep asked us to fill in a short survey and we did. By that night she had tracked us all down on social media, text whoever out their number on the survey repeatedly, called them, and turned up at someone’s house numerous times over the weekend with a “sample kit” no matter how many times she refused it & asked her not to come over. Luckily most of us lived out with her reach but yeah she was crazy militant. The college had to intervene but I’m not sure what happened about it

Big Facebook company’s? I mean big company’s I have no idea why I said that lol

Also what was the company selling that epoch mud mask that went viral a few times? Someone on my social media works for them & she’d liked my post about started steroid treatment for my alopecia a few weeks before sent me a deal on their new shampoo and conditioner and i declined and said remember I don’t have any hair right now. Then she claimed i could just try it anyways. I was like I think it’s very cheeky that you’ve liked a few of my posts regarding hair loss and then ask me to buy a product for the hair I don’t have and she blocked me lol

Sorry for the multiple posts but after the Arbonne scandal we found out on of the women in the other class was left in grands of debt with Arbonne because they made her buy stock to sell it instead of taking orders etc and told her that was how it worked.

I've fallen down a Younique rabbit hole and I'm looking at all the Facebook groups. It appears to me a bit like the QVC possie where it's lonely women who feel wanted and liked by the fellow Younique lovers, they chat about the make up and it's their common interest. A bit like collecting the same toys at school.

BusterGonad I forgot about the Anniversary pallette! I managed to get one of those. Still have it. So many shades of black. Second in disappointment only to the Hydrating mask that never was.
Of course, anyone who said that they couldn't get those lovely shades in the promotional photos was told "you just aren't applying correctly. You need a base of Victorious cream shadow first." I tried that, no different.
I think the only items I have that I look fondly upon are the limited edition purple and blue liquid eyeliner that I got. I like those colours and don't stab myself in the eye while applying them. The less said about my impressive ability to stab myself in the eye while applying mascara, the better. I can't think of anything else from the 3 years I was part of Younique that I would actually buy. But that's only because I haven't seen another company doing those colours of liquid eyeliner.

The other eyeshadow palettes don't look too bad but why are they so expensive? I mean I'd pay £15 at a push, generally I don't like buying eyeshadows without testing them as they can be so hit and miss. I've recently bought 3 Revlon eyeshadow palettes that are new out, but I did Google them and found the reviews really helpful. (They are stunning btw!) But at £9 Each I'm very happy with them. I really don't like the chunkiness of the cardboard packaging either. Looks cheap and they are definitely not cheap.

The other eyeshadow palettes don't look too bad but why are they so expensive?

So that everyone in the pyramid can get their cut. For example if you sell one of those terrible non-pigmented palettes, you get a percentage of the sale as commission and so does your upline, her upline, and her upline. Every sale you make gives money to women three levels above you. That’s why the products are artificially inflated in price.

The younique palettes are famously shit, muddy, crumbly, powdery and unpigmented. You can get an excellent quality Urban Decay palette for the same price.

It's called Younique. Surely that's a crime in itself?

@Jasmin82 -

I'd be interested in learning more about the incentive trips. One presenter I know went to Mexico last year. She's from the UK. Am I right in thinking that this wasn't all paid for by Younique like she'd led us to believe? I did some digging and it seemed to be 4 nights accommodation and some spending money included. No flights or anything.

Also, these trips to Spain or some European destination for a conference? Are these for specially invited presenters? Or the ones most ready to part with their cash and pay to attend?

Thanks. It's all very interesting.

Totally loving the implication that Bab's (or can I call her Wowbot?) Income is so fucking large she can afford a nanny...

Colour me convinced... I'm sure wowbot can sell me something for that...

No, really, .... No fake it till you make it ... no not at all...

We've had MLM reps on here say that 'fake it till you make it' is perfectly acceptable business practice and if you object you're naive.

Can't do that then clutch pearls when you're accused of lying.