I don't know anything about the company, but a friend of a friend gave me a sample bag to try a couple months ago. I thought it odd that she came back to pick up the samples a week later. Wasn't clear if she was trying to get me to buy the products or become a dealer. Either way, I passed.

All I know is that there was a very irritating woman on a listserve I was a member of who was always trying to tell us all that her products would cure us ( it was a listserve for a health problem). Like Gardneweb, it was supposed to be a place where you could not do this kind of self-promotion, but she did it for a long time. I am always wary of these kind of set-ups.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pyramid schemes

Read some of the articles linked below, particularly "Ten Tests for Evaluating a Network Marketing 'Opportunity'" and "The 10 Big Lies of Multi-Level Marketing".

Here is a link that might be useful: MLM Survivors

From the MLM Survivors link I went to a link that had a book, "Behind the Smoke and Mirrors" about Amway. Since the Republicans seem destined to nominate Dick DeVos (Amway creator and very rich guy) as Governor in my fair state, I thought it might be an interesting read. They treat him like a business god in this state.

So, have you made a decision about Arbonne?

I am an Independent Consultant and District Manager for Arbonne International. I have been in the business for four months and I have loved every minute. My checks have gotten increasingly larger each month and I have already promoted once and am looking to promote again by the end of the summer. I have done Amway and Discovery Toys MLM both of which I saw not a penny. Amway wanted me to spend tons of money on business building aids and still have the money to purchase product to promote. HELLO...new mother...no money! With Discovery Toys I had questions but my upline was nowhere to be found plus toys are not consumable so there was nowhere to go once you made a sale to a client so I let that membership roll off as well. However, with Arbonne I have been blessed with a wonderful upline who is there with answers when I have questions and to help with building my business. The business aids have all been included in my signup costs or free: online university, encouragement and training that can be heard online or burned to CD and listened too when it's convenient for me, free business aids mailed with each order...the list goes on. To top it off, my husband (who is sceptical of everything) has seen what this business is about and for us, it is not nearly as much about the money as it is giving back to others around us and at the same time changing who we are! Iron sharpening Iron. I doubt we will ever do anything different. We are looking to retire my husband within the year so we can do this business full time. I hope this has been helpful. I hope all the best for you and your family.
Best wishes,
Brenda

I use Arbonne. I was invited to a "party" last June and bought the $200 Renu skin care set. Normally I'd never spend that much, but I'm 43 and my skin was suddenly a mess, so I gave it a try. My skin looks much better now, less wrinkly and smoother, and the products lasted almost a whole year. I just bought another set.

Spending $200 automatically made me a "consultant", but I haven't sold anything to anyone else. I didn't realize you had to pay for a kit to do that.

My skin is less wrinkly now, and I like that the moisturizers don't contain any petroleum products. The day cream is spf 8, just enough to let my face tan without burning. I didn't have to put any extra sunscreen on my face all summer, and I'm outside a lot.

http://www.joelcomm.com/to_arbonne_or_not_to_arbonne.html

Might be a site to read. Red flags go up for me when there are negative posts and suddenly two positives post. I googled arbonne, this was the first site after Arbonne paid sites.

My wife is a district manager with arbonne, and has been in it for about a year. She absolutely loves it. I don't believe it's a gemmick. She is making some money at it. Not enough to quit her job, but she's making some extra money, and loves doing it. It doesn't cost hardly anything to get started, and just like anything else, it depends on how hard you want to work at it.

It seems more than a little odd to me too, that the poster on May 18th joined and posted that day.

What does anyone else think of that?

Hmmmmmmmm........

Could we have been spammed here?

Here is a link that might be useful: Interesting...

Smells a bit like free promotion, to me.

o j

PASS ON THIS ONE BIG TIME.

I've never used the product but I want to tell you this little bit of info. A friend of a friend just sold her 1.8 million dollar house. At the closing the buyer gave the seller a basket full of products. After the closing the closing agent told the seller that the buyer was a VP of the company. She was ONLY 28 years old. VERY rare here in Oklahoma for anyone of that age to purchase a house of this amount. Very rare for one of my friends to have a friend with a house like this. Anyway, it made us all wonder how she could be so high in the company at this age. We thought possibly a relative. I hope she is enjoying it. I've been in it, it's absolutely awesome.

Well, there are a few folks driving free pink cadilacs too, but I tend to think they are maybe less than 1 in a million.

Chances are extremely great that I wouldn't be one of them...lol

Hi there. I found this forum while researching Arbonne International and multi-level marketing schemes on Google. After finding out more about such schemes, I had to come back and share with this group.

In short, MLM programs like Arbonne are NOT created to sell products or make everyone successful - doing so would cause the organization to fail. The Amways and Herbalifes of the world make their money by recruiting new salespeople (associates, consultants, etc) who typically - nearly 75% - make no money (and generally lose money) and drop out within a year. The approximately 1 in a 100% who succeed are held up as examples, and those who fail (they are told) have only themselves to blame. The report that I found below on the web by a reputable source proves that you actually have a better chance in Las Vegas than you do in the typical MLM scheme, and you don't really have much chance for success, even if you do work hard.

See the report below - it is worth the time and effort to read. It also explains how the FCC has prosecuted some MLM schemes, like Amway. It basically found that only 20% of the companies earnings came from the actual sale of products to consumers - 80% came from sales to their own consultants, most of whom failed to create a viable business for themselves and quit.

If the link expires (it's cached at Google), try this search, and it should be one of the first listed under the title:
The Myth of Income Opportunity in Multi Level Marketing

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Arbonne+International%22+multi+level+marketing+pyramid+scheme

Here is a link that might be useful: Pyramidschemealert.com report

But Jay Van Andel and possibly the other founder of Amway were ...

... good friends of Ronald Reagan ...

... and big supporter(s?) of the Republican party.

ole joyful

And Dick DeVos,son of "the other founder of Amway" is running for governor of Michigan against our Democrat, Canadian-born, Governor Granholm. And he says he's created all these jobs....

My DD has a friend at work who sells the stuff and is always trying to recruit her to sell it. As with so many of the Pyramid scheme products, they are overpriced in MHO. And I don't feel inclined to make money for a Swiss conglomerate.

Nancy ~ As for the election, I don't intend to vote for either one of them. I think if De Vos is so great at creating jobs, that is what he should be doing (and not in China), and Grandholm should go back to Canada! :>)

I'm the one who posted positively about Arbonne earlier in this thread. I'm not a spammer, I've been a Gardenweb member for years.

Seems to me that Arbonne is just a company selling nice skin care products. There's nothing "pyramid" about it. It's similar to Avon.

The products work for me, my skin looks better, and I didn't experience any hard-sell or annoying tactics.

Carol,
There was nothing wrong with your post. You merely said something good about the product, just as maybe someone would about Avon.

The SPAM post was by bjplov, on May 18th, who is making money hand over fist selling the stuff...looking to get someone signed up it appears to me.

bjpluv said, "To top it off, my husband (who is sceptical of everything) has seen what this business is about and for us, it is not nearly as much about the money as it is giving back to others around us and at the same time changing who we are!

I wonder how it changed them...made them beautiful? personable? rich?

well I just wonder what she meant about it being about giving back to others around them...Are they giving the product away? Are they looking to help all their friends and relatives get rich? They said it wasn't about the money, so maybe whatever they are making selling it, they are donating 100%.

They are hoping to retire the husband in a year and sell it then...so I guess then they won't be giving it back...lol

Did any of what she or I said make any sense?

chemocurl, you make *perfect* sense. Seems like bjpluv was trying a *recruitment* ploy to me! LOL :>)

In regards to the effacacy of Arbonne read the ingredient list for each product and you'll see there is nothing and I mean NOTHING in thier products that can improve the quality of skin over 40. You must stimulate collagen production to improve the signs of aging and enviormental damage. Glycerin and rosewater make a better and a less expensive moisturizer than Arbonne. If you want younger looking skin look for products that can reverse the signs of aging. Ex: AHAs, Retinol, Vitamin C, Antioxidents, Hyaluronic Acid, Enzymes and always ALWAYS Sun protection in the form of a 30 SPF or higher. (Many experts agree that it takes as little as eight minutes of sun a day on unprotected skin before free-radicals start forming) Suntans are for teenagers. If you want a tan...spray. Wear a hat outdoors when possible and consider seeing a skincare professional for specific treatment.

My cousin gave me some samples of Arbonne at a baby shower about a month ago. I used them for about a week and was impressed with some almost instant results that I saw on a blemish. That's not to say that if I bought something at CVS, I wouldn't have had the same results. Maybe. I went ahead and bought the skin care package. It was pricey.

I thought it was more like Avon or Mary Kay. How is it different?

Footnotes, thanks for the heads-up. I will keep that in mind when my products are gone.

kompy,
Multi-level marketing is when the person who recruited you to sell a product gets a portion of your sale, or profits in some other way based on the volume of your sales. The real money comes from recruiting people to sell, not by selling the product.

I was a bankruptcy lawyer for years and we saw waves of people come in who were involved in first one scheme then another. What always amazed me was that like bjpluvsbwp they get involved in one of these "opportunities" make no money and then proceed to get involved in two more. They must enjoy the rah rah meetings or the social aspect or being able to say they are their own boss. For Heaven's sake, click your ruby slippers and find something else to do besides MLM, especially when you hear that selling cosmetics is "giving back to the community" or that somebody in the company made millions selling at the rate of $100 to $200 a purchase. do the math
So often the people who ended up spending money on these things needed a job badly and could ill afford to spend the money buying a garage full of supplies. I don't doubt somebody made a fortune who owned the company. I'm not so easily convinced about the fortunes of the rest of the workers.