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Normally, my job consisted of browsing copies of Dun & Bradstreet publications, scouring piles of annual reports and interviewing dozens of people about their companies' policies, practices and profits -- all so that my clients could keep ahead of their competition.

This time, however, I was asked to actually infiltrate the ranks of several multilevel sales companies. These companies, namely Amway, NuSkin, Avon and Mary Kay, use the term multilevel sales (instead of the more common term "pyramid scheme") in reference to the voluntary, non-salaried sales force that hawks their wares. My first assignment was to penetrate the towering powerhouse of positive pink thinking, Mary Kay Cosmetics. My client wanted to know what the recruits were getting, financially or otherwise, to maintain their high degree of loyalty and service (which resulted in considerable financial returns) to a company that didn't employ them.

Before I started my literature search into the company's history, the one fact I knew about the company's founder, Mary Kay Ash, was that she ain't no feminist looking to empower the female masses. The mention of the company immediately conjured up images of eternally perky, well-coiffed, manicured suburban women in their 40s and 50s, who believed that not understanding whether or not your color scheme is spring or summer is what Theodore Dreiser meant by "An American Tragedy." Mary Kay obviously appealed to women with too much time on their hands, desperately in need of some panacea of feel-good Tony Robbins-like meaning in their lives, with lip liner.

I later discovered that she had gone on record to declare her feelings about the F word. "Mary Kay dislikes the word feminist, but has made a lifelong commitment to help women aspire to greatness." The difference? After 25 years of direct sales experience with other companies, Ash was "frustrated with the obstacles women faced in the workplace and wanted to create a company where women had unlimited potential personally and professionally." Sounded like feminism to me, but, obviously, this was just a slick marketing ploy to appeal to the '90s woman while still keeping her in her pink little place. Or so I thought.

To begin the subterfuge, I needed to become allied with a "beauty consultant" who would pull me into the business so that I could observe her recruiting tactics firsthand. Enter my new Mary Kay best friend, Paula, whom I "innocently" contacted via the Yellow Pages for a beauty makeover. She was a 50ish, single, ex-airline stewardess turned cosmetics biz grand dame, thanks to the ample training and motivation of Mary Kay. She had worked her way up from the bottom to attain the coveted title of national sales director, and had won several Cadillacs and furs over the past five years. Paula had earned $69,000 in the prior year alone.

She enjoyed immediate familiarity, calling me "sweetie," "dear" and "honey" within the first 10 minutes of meeting me at her downtown San Francisco apartment. (I was convinced I would be headed to the suburbs for this venture but, as it turned out, Mary Kay is everywhere, including the Amazon.)

"Sweetie, are you ready for the new you? Let's do it!"

With those words, she ushered me into her Ethan Allen air-conditioned nightmare of an apartment for my transformation. She had laid out the complete Mary Kay line on the dining table along with worksheets, various disposable dishes of lotions and liquids, applicators and cotton swabs.

"Now Kristina, how old do you think I am? Wait. Feel my skin."

Paula grabbed my hand as shock and horror overcame me.

"Smooth as a baby's bottom, isn't it?"

Paula had an incredible ability to answer her own questions. This served two purposes. First, it allowed her to overcome any weak-willed opposition she may have faced by telling potential customers what they thought before they had a chance to think it. Second, the answers provided her with the perfect segue to the next point in her watertight sales script (without which she would be lost.)

I thought I was off the hook but she repeated, "Now guess my age."

I hesitated, hoping to God she would fill in the answer, but she didn't. She was beginning to remind me of that Texas cheerleader-killing mom. What would Paula do if she didn't get the answer she wanted? Finally I squinted and grossly underestimated.

"Forty?" I whispered.

"Fifty-one," Paula announced proudly, slapping her hand down on the table.

My real guess was 53.

"My skin was a mess before I went on the Mary Kay regimen six years ago. You're young and you have good skin but, trust me, it won't stay that way forever. Oh, what I wouldn't give to have started on these products at your age."

I already hated Paula. I never wore makeup, and, at this point, was still in the midst of a raging, sophomoric feminist period. A preoccupation with looks was, to me, tantamount to suckling the devil. She was as abhorrent as I'd imagined she would be.

"The moisturizer is scientifically created to compliment the work begun by the cleansing system. You really won't receive the full benefits unless you are committed to the entire regimen." Seeing as the only daily regimen I could commit to at the time was feeding my cats, this was the wrong tactic to take with me. But I acquiesced dutifully to any and all ploys that would lead me into Paula's confidence.

The skin pitch over, it was time to color-coordinate my features. Paula layered my face with more makeup than I had cumulatively ever worn in my previous 25 years. She did one eye at a time to demonstrate how I was scientifically becoming more beautiful with every stroke of the brush. I cringed at the decimation of my features. As my natural appearance began to fade, Paula set about probing into my work life.

Next page | The better to recruit you with, my dear