Mary Ken Cosmetics

A few weeks ago, I got roped into a Mary Kay cosmetic makeover night.

Ok, I willingly got roped in since my ”just buy it off the shelf and try it” experiment resulted in 4 moisturizers in the garbage, 3 concealers in the garbage, and 3 bronzer experiments that ended with looking like an Miami-loving Oompa Loompa.

What I didn’t know, was that it was also a team meeting.

As I sat in the audience of 30-40 people, the meeting got started with much cheering and fanfare. Pins were given out for women who had:

• booked the most amount of parties,
• made the most sales (in dollars)
• been promoted to the next level of leadership
• added the most saleswomen to their team
• and lastly, been recently inducted into the sales region.

It was this last part that caught me off-guard. When the district director had all the new saleswomen come up and receive a pin, someone caught my eye.

A man.

Not just any man, but a man in a red wig and an ill-fitting dress.

My question wasn’t “Why are you here?” But rather, “Who are you planning to sell Mary Kay to?”
The thing is, he wasn’t an extravagant drag queen (who, a friend of mine pointed out, would probably be at MAC makeup), but just a run-of-the-mill crossdresser.

Is he walking up to women on the street asking them if they want a makeover?

Is he tapping into an unknown market of crossdressers who want to buy their cosmetics at home rather than under the scrutiny of a salesperson’s eye at CVS?

Does he have a lot of women who would trust him to guide them to the right color foundation?

And for the curious parties, yes, I did buy an s—-load of skincare. But my skin has never looked better. Hell, if it can work to coverup manly stubble, it has to work for me.