[Virginia on the Radio] NPR’s On Point Investigates Mary Kay

Beauty Schooled: An Investigation of the Price We Pay for Pretty

In case you missed it live yesterday, here’s the podcast of NPR’s On Point, which devoted its second hour yesterday to Investigating Mary Kay, inspired by my Harper’s article.

The show was guest-hosted by Wade Goodwyn and in addition to me featured Lynne (one of the women profiled in my story) and Douglas Brooks, a practicing attorney who has litigated numerous class action suits on behalf of victims of multi-level marketing schemes over the past 20 years.

On the industry side, we heard from Laura Beitler, Mary Kay’s Vice President in charge of compliance and Joseph Mariano, president of the Direct Selling Association, a trade group that represents roughly 200 firms (Mary Kay included) that sell products directly to consumers.

Beitler and Mariano stuck to a couple of talking points and while I got a chance to respond to most of them on air, I thought I’d dig a little bit deeper into why they are so off-base here. It gets kinda inside baseball, so I’m going to break these out over several posts this week. Stay tuned for the first one — about that brilliant “but you aren’t required to buy inventory!” loophole — later today.

In the meantime, go enjoy the On Point podcast and share with your friends.

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