This explanation has been a long time coming. I do not feel that I owe it to anyone, but I’ll give it to you anyway. You know you want the tea 😉
I joined It Works in 2012 and stayed active for about 3 years afterwards. It brought me income in a much needed time and I learned a ton. I learned about team building, leadership, mindset, and refreshed my public speaking skills.
This post is not to bash the company or the MLM business model. I’ve heard the tired arguments and if I was just here to regurgitate that, I’d be insulting the reader. MLMs are a cheap way for a regular person to own a version of a franchise, I wrote a whole post about it here that doesn’t try to get you to “join me now!”.
Back to the topic. I believe in learning and consequentially knowing better and thereby doing better. Recently, I heard someone, a white woman, apologize for using the word “tribe” for describing her friend circle. Someone made her aware that the use of the word is problematic, see: oppression and genocide of Indigenous people at the hands of white people. So she apologized and doesn’t use it anymore. Simple, you know better so you do better.
‘It Works!’ made its whole business model on selling an affordable product that could “fix” or “improve” less desirable body parts. As my time on social media grew, I met more and more women who were not subscribing to the idea that there’s anything wrong with their bodies after having children and there’s nothing to “fix” because it isn’t actually broken. It seemed radical at first, but when I dug deeper into that thought it just made so much sense. There’s a whole history on how ‘Vogue’ created the “problem” of cellulite about 50 years ago.
As a teenager, I grew up looking at magazines with girls with perfect skin and tanned perfect bodies. No stretch marks, no scars, and no body hair. Not a touch of cellulite in sight. That’s not what actual bodies look like and trying to chase perfection left me feeling less worthy.
I feel like we, as women, are inundated with “buy ___ to fix ___”. Wrinkle creams, stretch mark lotion, cellulite scrub, under eye cream, detox tea, appetite suppressants, waist trainers.
It’s fucking exhausting!
I can see both sides of most arguments and I get that the billion dollar beauty industry didn’t grow because anyone was forced to consume anything. I think a good moisturizer is key, good shampoo can change your life, and that makeup can be fun. However, I’d argue that there’s a line between buying what makes you feel good and buying something that’s preying on your insecurities.
That’s when I decided that I would no longer be part of it; I had learned better. Sure, the other reps sticking their noses in postpartum women’s DMs trying to sell them wraps really didn’t help the case of continuing with the company. Guilty by association? No thanks.
I am most thankful for the people I met along the way and seeing a lot of old friends was a lovely perk. Much like a relationship that started well, taught you a lot but eventually you both grew in different directions … I simply outgrew this business.
fioraliz.com 