I often feel like I need to need to add a disclaimer to the things I write about.  Typically, because its fueled by some strong feelings or emotions that may not exactly be on par with the current status quo, and my perspective may ruffle a few feathers.  I try to be as tactful and respectful in expressing my viewpoint as possible in hopes of opening a discussion rather than just a rampage of “me” statements.  That being said, this is my own personal experience and story about why I left the beauty industry and network marketing company.

In the last year or so I noticed an influx of beauty and lifestyle influencers on Facebook and Instagram promoting the latest trends and doing live makeup tutorials.  I enjoyed putting on makeup and getting all dolled up, I liked watching the presenters and I wasn’t too bad with a makeup brush either.  In fact, would often have friends ask me to help them with their makeup so like many women out there I thought, “hey I could do that!” And I joined a direct sales company.

Immediately after joining, I was funneled into a group chat of other newbies where we were there to help answer each other’s questions.  It felt like the blind leading the blind, but I was confident in my entrepreneurship skills since I had been successfully self-employed for several years now and looking for a new endeavor.  I got this!  I was inspired and determined!  I did well in starting up my new business and promoted in the company quickly.  It was fun, and exciting, it gave me something to do in my down time.  I was starting to gain a following, making a little bit of money and things seemed to be going well.

I spent quite a bit of money buying my own products to showcase in my live tutorials which I made a small commission back on, but I told myself that it was an investment and I was going to make it back.  I mean, how are you going to sell something if you don’t have it to show people?  Sometimes you have to spend money to make money, and besides, who can have too much makeup!  I was feeling pretty good about the progress I was making and spending a lot of time behind the scenes messaging potential customers, adding new friends on Facebook and making sure I went live almost every single day, so I didn’t lose my momentum.

At the end of the year my husband and daughter were on vacation where the Wi-Fi was hard to come by and barely strong enough scroll my news feed, let alone hold up for a live makeup tutorial.  New years day I spent 45 minutes trying to watch a ten minute training video debuting yet another brand new, ground breaking, got to run out and grab it right now, collection that was just released, along with a new website and a bunch of other announcements for presenters.  I thought “Great, I’m not even going to be home for another week and a half to get my eye shadows and lipsticks.  How am I ever going to be able to meet my sales goals?”  I was in a tropical paradise spending most of my time looking down at my phone, asking for Wi-Fi passwords at restaurants and trying to bribe by husband and daughter to take just one more picture, but at a different angle.  And then the messages asking where I have been and why haven’t we seen you on came rolling in.  After emotionally torturing myself like this for the first half of my trip, I finally just said screw it, I am going to set it aside until I get home.

When I got home from my trip, I felt like I had lost all my mojo.  I was only gone for two weeks but it felt like I had to start from scratch to get the ball rolling again.  On top of it all, I felt like I had missed out on so much time with my family.  Sure, I was physically there, but I wasn’t present.  Still I spent the next week catching up on all the new training videos, bought a fancy new planner with all sorts of stickers and went gung-ho on the whole “New Year New Me” thing.  I poured myself back into my business.  I spent twelve plus hours a day on my phone going back and forth between the website, Facebook, Instagram, watching other presenters, doing makeup tutorials, editing pictures, messaging customers.  I was busting my ass!

Then I started getting chronic and severe cystic acne.  All the makeup products, skin care, face masks, cleansers day in and day out wreaked havoc on my skin!  “Oh, that’s just your skin purging when you use a new product,” I was told. “You really have to be consistent for four to six weeks to see the real improvement.”  So, I continued to stick with it, even though my face and neck were so broken out with deep, painful pimples and sores.  I kept telling myself it would get better.  But it didn’t.

This is about the time I decided to take a break.  I needed to figure out what was going on with my skin and give it some time to breathe and heal.  In the meantime, I stayed up to date with what was going on with the company, watched other presenters and really took a step back to observe.  I had a lot of messages coming in asking how I was doing, I had women on my team share concerns and ask for advice, and I always said, I was taking a break to focus on other things in my life.  I never wanted to bash the company or talk negatively about the products or the business model behind it.  That being said, there were a lot of things I noticed when I wasn’t in the thick of the hustle.

This is the part where I could sit and write a laundry list of all the things people say and do to promote in their business that I didn’t agree with.  Things that I felt were dishonest, exaggeration or manipulative.  How companies spend millions of dollars on marketing techniques to exploit our insecurities, or fear of missing out on the next big thing, all under the guise of female empowerment.  I can talk about how important it is to support artists and small businesses instead of mega corporations but at the end of the day, people are going to do what people and going to do and I’m a firm believer in “live and let live.”

It’s been a few months since I stopped doing makeup tutorials.  I rarely wear makeup at all these days.  I don’t use any kind of chemical cleansers, toners or moisturizers that aren’t completely natural and organic, and my skin still hasn’t completely recovered.  Maybe it wasn’t all the makeup and cleansers, but I have been focusing on healing and repairing my body from the inside out with whole foods, lots of water, and plenty of movement and rest.

I still get asked by my followers (and for the record I hate that term) where I have been, how I am doing, and if I have “given up” on the whole makeup thing.  My response has always been, “I haven’t given up on anything other than that which is no longer serving me.”  I am still around, I am still on social media, I am still writing, I still respond to messages, and I appreciate each one of those messages.

I feel like when you place yourself on a public platform to promote a certain kind of business and you suddenly fall off people crave and explanation.  I went back and forth for a long time about what if anything I wanted to say about why I left but sometimes the best response is no response at all, so for a long time I just stayed quiet.

The other day I came across a video about the beauty industry playing on our insecurities and fear of missing out, the addiction to social media and feeling the need to keep up with the next big thing.  It was very real and raw and empowering, and resonated with me deeply.  The overall message was simply “you are ENOUGH just the way you are.”  The video got a lot of shares, but today I woke up to find a couple of posts that seemed to indicate that offence was taken.

Let me be clear here.  If you love makeup, then love it.  If styling your hair every day makes you happy then do it.  If a new belt, purse, shoes whatever is going to make your day then go out and get it.  Whatever that thing is that makes you want to get out of bed every day go for it!  No one is going to stand in the way of your happiness besides you.  You do you honey.  But I no longer feel like sitting in front of the camera telling you, “you need to run and grab this mascara” or “this concealer is life.”  Because you don’t.  And it’s not.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is only trying to make a sale.