Are MLMs all bad? What about Scentsy?

There is a growing trend on social media, forums, and even in documentaries (LulaRich, anyone?) that goes after every single MLM on the market and accuses them all of being pyramid-schemes that aim to trick unwitting housewives and gym-bros out of their free time and acquaintances to drive profits up an endless food chain that is insatiable. More sales, more-sign ups, more events, and more targets all mean more profits… for the parent company, at least. At the request of a friend I joined an MLM under her called ColorStreet. The quality of the items are pretty good, but I must admit that I’m not finding myself the best at putting on nail wraps, but that isn’t ColorStreet’s fault as I wasn’t much better at Dashing Diva (actually, I was somehow worse).

If you want to check out their products, by all means go ahead… they are cute manicures for people who don’t have the time to go through several steps. For me, however, I am clumsy as hell so ColorStreet and I didn’t get along well. I’ll keep trying.

In all honesty, I think one of the biggest benefits of joining MLMS is getting free stuff that you already like. Whether or not you continue with them is contentious in my opinion– especially since the amount of time it takes to “run an MLM business” hardly ever justifies the measly payouts and rewards. Yet, many times a year these MLMs dish out great perks for joining, and provide significant savings on “joining kits”. These kits are meant to give you things to sell to others–supposedly– but I am pretty sure most people just want the stuff. Maybe that’s just me?

Either way, this does seem like a good way to test-the-waters and see if being a shill for a company that cares 0% about you feels like. It’s not illegal, and it’s also nothing new. Brands like Avon and JR Watkins have been around for over a century.

My journey for ColorStreet is short-lived. I’m not a fan of the product, but that could just be that I am more of a gel nail kind of girl.

This friend is also a member of Scentsy, but did not ask me to join. She’s not the type to beg and plead, and simply shares items she likes with like-minded people. But, having used Scentsy off and on for years (as well as off-brand waxes, and even my own made with essential oils), I have to admit that Scentsy is… good. There’s no likelihood I’ll keep it, but I do think I’ll continue ordering through my friend since the items are much higher quality than other brands. As a person with scent allergies and sensitivities, I’ve noticed that very few of their products make me sneeze or get sick (and those few are ones I am generally allergic to anyways).

Something that Scentsy is particularly good at is creating products that appeal to pre-existing fanbases. This is especially true for Disney-owned properties, as well as Warner Brother’s Harry Potter. I must admit- I have grappled with whether or not my house has room for Mrs. Potts and Chip, and… they won in the end.

I’m not going to go too hard on ColorStreet since I didn’t spend very much time wearing their product. I will say that they paid out any benefits very fast, so that was appreciated. I used those payouts to buy $60 worth of gel nail polish from China-a truly ironic way to spend the funds. Those nail polishes were great, by the way.

As for the actual wax, I’m finding that they do throw scent much longer than the ones I personally made myself, and far longer than the ones from Walmart. The only wax cubes that last as long that aren’t scentsy (that I’ve found) are the Glade ones, but they are overly perfumy and give me a headache after a while.

I think part of the problem with MLM structures is that there are costs associated like running your own “website”, eating the costs of shipping for orders for clients, and only earning some commission despite spending a lot of time on the brand. However, this is really similar to Youtubers and other bloggers shilling affiliate links in the hope somebody buys a product. I’m actually a bit surprised there haven’t been more deep-dives on affiliate marketing versus the multi-level-marketing scheme. They honestly just feel like a rebranding.

So, if you don’t like MLMs, why did you join Scentsy?

I have to first admit that part of me is just having fun with it. When I looked up the options to join in March, it was 50% off, and after I added everything up in the cart, I did realize that there were about $100 worth of items for $60 after tax. I figured why not, and I took the plunge into the weird Scentsy world.

The starter kit actually seems better this month… but oh well for me I guess.

In my opinion, the value here isn’t really things you can sell. Although these kits do give you brochures and tester scents so that you can have wine parties with your friends and sniff wax whilst ensuring they have their credit-cards ready for after the wine sets in… Tupperware parties were the place to be back in the day, and Avon was always rocking. Like it or not, these types of businesses have always had at least some legitimacy in women’s social groups. I’m not going to get into the essential oil sellers or the protein bros… that’s just… too deep down the rabbit hole. I did sign up for Norwex, though. Although, again, that was so I’d get their items free just for the shipping. I wanted the cloth for my glasses, and the dusting mit is nice. Will I ever pay fill price for Norwex? Meh, probably not. But, they do have nice products.

I think the funniest part of the entire experience on Scentsy was when I read their very transparent (even a brag!) payout schedule. Now, as a woman who actually runs a business… I laughed and I laughed hard.

For every $1000 of merchandise you sell, you’ll get $200. This of course doesn’t account for the money spend on your monthly website (about $15 or so, I can’t remember), the shipping costs accured making orders on behalf of your friends, and any other social campaigns you do, or parties you run (I don’t see Scentsy selling the wine and cheese).

I don’t think there is anything wrong with Scentsy as a hobby. Every little incentive, in my opinion, should be a cherry on top of buying and sharing with your friends a product that you love. If like-minded people want to buy scentsy and order, it can be beneficial to order under their friend- and maybe now and then another friend joins in order to swap up the perks of a nice starter kit. But let’s not call Scentsy a small business or promise riches.

I think the worst part of Scentsy is how much I love their items… I’d definitely buy them if they were in stores, so I suppose if you like the product, you need to be part of the MLM (even just by buying from a friend).

As an update to this story, I realized after using Scentsy regularly in our home, both my husband AND myself are sensitive to 90% of the bars, my husband is normally not sensitive to anything. He pretty much begged me to stop using them. I’m going to go back to making my own wax bars.