The Evil that is Mary Kay

So, I have this friend that I met at a bachelorette party, once upon a time, and she said she had just started selling Mary Kay, and because I really like the idea of Mary Kay in theory--the idea of women being able to work at home, woman-owned small businesses, etc--and she was looking for test subjects, I volunteered.

Side note: Not only am I NOT a girly-girl, I am also kind of a sucker for advertisements and clever packaging, and therefore I had a period in my life (sadly, right over the time I moved a lot) in which I had TWO FULL CARDBOARD BOXES, the gigantic moving kind, of...hair product. That I never used. That I carefully moved to at least four separate residences.

Based on these experiences, and the subsequent kicking-myself-in-the-head that I did, I am very hesitant about buying any makeup product at all, although I make an exception for lip gloss. (Buy it, lose it. Buy it, lose it.) So I went ahead and volunteered to be her Mary Kay subject, but I was NOT going to buy anything. Not. Not.

What I didn't bargain on was the Mary Kay program of doing TWO facials, a starting facial and then a follow-up facial. At the starting facial I bought three lipglosses, something I always need, and also bronzer, which impressed me during the facial (and has continued to impress me.)

And then I started getting the calls for the follow-up facial.

I resisted. I flaked out. I refused to return calls. And then finally Jen (the Mary Kay girl, and actually very nice) nailed me down and sure enough, a week ago yesterday, we had the follow-up facial, and I could hold out no longer, and I bought a skin care system. And some eye cream because that would push my total up to (big scary number I can't reveal here, except that it has three digits) and then I would get a free makeup bag, and let me tell you, the makeup bags at Mary Kay are unbelievably terrific.

HOWEVER. The reason I bought the skin care system, or part of the reason, is that Jen said, "Look, I will make you a deal. If you buy this system, and use it faithfully every day, twice a day, and your skin doesn't get better, I'll buy it back from you. You're a great test case. Please, buy it and use it every day. Please?"

How can I resist a deal like that? And so now I have spent close to two hundred dollars on makeup and skin care in the past month that I will probably never use, since I did indeed use the system three days in a row last week but completely forgot over the weekend AND Monday, and all I can say is that the next girl I meet who tells me she's selling Mary Kay I will punch in the face and then run away.