Jamberry Puns

So I left my middle school about 6 years ago and I went back there to do a talk for the children. For the rest of the day I was supposed to go through classrooms and talk to some of the kids. I went into my old music teachers room during her lesson and sit down, I look across the classroom and notice a table with a big sign reading jamberry and it has a bunch of boxes on it. The lesson ends but as it ends she points the students to the table and asks if they want to buy any. One or two of the girls pay for a box and everyone leaves. Turns out the week before she had done a presentation on jamberry and told her students to bring money in and buy some.

Is there anything I can do about this? Im in the uk btw.

I don't know how many of you out there have read Jamberry, but it's my daughter's favorite book, and at this point I've got that, Goodnight Moon, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar committed fully to memory.

Last night at work (I am an audio engineer) I was testing some microphones, and I had to think of some text to recite as I walked around the room checking for feedback. After a moment of trying to find something interesting to read, I remember that my head is already full of riveting texts.

I start reciting Jamberry.

"one berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry."

I definitely got a few surpised side eyes, I don't think anyone I work with has kids, and no one on the travelling act had kids.

I felt really silly, but it worked great because I know the whole book so well, and the crew got a big laugh out of it.

I had a friend who would relentlessly push the terrible, ugly nail stickers on FB. I would purposely flaunt my own nails that were beautiful and artful and I did myself just to piss her off. Non-stop, all day long, she was pushing this crap. in all fairness she has sold pretty much every single MLM and is now into essential oils. Anyway, I just recently bought a UV light and I've been doing my own gel nails and I ran across a sheet of Jamberry stickers being sold on Amazon. I haven't heard much of anything about this company in a while, did people finally catch on?

Is jamberry nails still a thing?? I haven’t seen this one doing the rounds for a while did the pyramid collapse??

The Jamberry post from yesterday reminded me of a story from a few years ago of a run-in I had with a consultant and I thought I’d share, since we’re all desperate for non-virus content and human connection (or is that just me?).

When I divulge this first piece of information, you’re going to immediately understand why this story is juicy. I run my own ACTUAL small business, making small-batch, reduced-chemical nail polish. I’m pretty much the natural enemy of Jamberry (and the newer Color Street) huns everywhere. This was before they themselves started selling nail polish (a fact I cackled about in light of this). Also disclaimer: I swear I’m a nice person! But this woman’s “selling tactics” brought out my inner Real Housewife.

This story takes place on a hot July day in Florida, at a local craft show being held in an outdoor field. It’s 100° with 98% humidity and I’m doing the patented cheerleader fan-and-dab to try to keep my makeup intake. Despite the heat, it’s pretty busy and I’m trying my best to chat with people and answer questions without evaporating into a cloud of steam at any moment.

An older woman I recognize from earlier in the day is looking through my discount stock basket and I say, “Hello again!” She smiles, says she’s thinking of picking up a couple shades because her daughter bought a few earlier and they look fun. Then she comes closer, leans in a little conspiratorially.

“Do you know what Jamberry is?”

I nod and say yes, trying not to let anything show on my face. She looks to her left, then back at me and says, “There’s a Jamberry rep a few rows over. We stopped at her booth and when she saw my daughter with a bag that said nail polish on it, she told us we would like her products much more because nail polish is such a hassle and is boring in comparison.”

I’m still trying to maintain an air of professionalism, but I can feel my mouth doing things.

She continues, “We looked at her stuff for a bit, but she was pretty pushy and my daughter ended up telling her that we had a limited amount of money to spend today so we would have to think about it. And the rep suggested we could always return the nail polish we bought because she was sure we would be happier with Jamberry! Honestly I thought it was pretty rude. I think she told us more bad things about nail polish than she did good things about her own stuff!”

I somehow, by the grace of everything holy, manage to just say, “Well, that’s a bummer! I’m sorry you had that ex

I have a confession. I'm a Jamberry consultant. i think MLM's are the devil but dammit, I like their products, I have a spreadsheet of my commission vs spend and I mostly just use it for the discount when I buy stuff for myself and my couple friends who like it too.

ANYWAYS... the last few weeks, we've been being told that we were merging with this company called M Products which do "water enhancers." Like, health stiks, add it to your water bottle, ones for energy, weight loss, mind clarity, mumbo jumbo. Why are we merging with a company that has nothing to do with nails/beauty? Ooo, we can be beautiful from the inside out, fine whatever.

We were just told today that the deal fell through. Apparently, the bank now owns Jamberry, the CEO isn't in the office, no one is leading the company, Jamberry has told the top uplines they won't be communicating anymore. Apparently they are in bad financial way. I'm in the US and orders are still shipping, but in other markets (UK, AUS) people just aren't getting their orders, and consultants are having people who made orders just do a charge back on their credit cards to get their refund.

It's all a big cluster F and all the top upline leaders are freaking out about losing their "business" and all these poor mid-level consultants are lost and don't know if they'll get paid commission this week and how will they buy groceries if they don't have payday. It's kinda sad.

I told my husband and his response was "well it was the one MLM i thought wasn't made from satan so it makes sense that it would go under." #truth

If you start to hear M products blow up on social media, it's because thousands of Jamberry consultants have been given the ability to opt into M for free, and so they're now gunna start shilling it. I've heard the Stiks taste delicious. Anyone wanna be in my #downline? I have an AMAZING GROUND FLOOR OPPORTUNITY for you! /s

I am trying to figure out what the color codes are for the Jamberry color scheme on my vibe kayak?! Vibe won't reply to me.

One of the first people I met when Moved to my small town was Gwen*. She was super friendly and I was happy I'd met another mama. Gwen invited me to a "girls night" she was hosting at her house. I get there, bottle of bubbly in hand and she says "thanks for bringing that but I've got something better" we get to her kitchen and the tables covered in nail polishes. I just thought she was hosting a super stereotypical girls night. Then came the pitch; she was selling these nail polishes and nail stickers as her Jamberry business. She also sold Mstix which is like a chalky powdered drink supplement. I was so disheartened when we had to taste test "stix" instead of drinking the wine I brought.

So out comes her pajama-wearing son who's 4. He walks around the kitchen and grabs womens hands and loudly says things like "OH WOW, that's so your colour!" and "it's GORRRRGEOUS on you!" I look over to Gwen and she's discreetly pointing at who he should "compliment" next. The party was really awkward, the women were standing around grimacing. To top it off Gwen was applying nail stickers with a hairdryer and burnt my nailbed, it hurt so bad! The application was terrible, it didn't fit right and it had air bubbles.

Just when it felt like the "party" was wrapping up her husband came in and proclaimed he had an exciting announcement. He proceeded to tell everyone what a miracle Mstixs were and how it pretty much cured him of his diabetes. Gwen got her laptop out and started scrolling through a FB group and randomly read out people's testimonies on the stixs.

This night felt like a high pressure sales pitch. Everyone was given order forms and told to write down what they wanted to buy. I swear it would have been easier to walk out of a cult meeting. So weird.

Gwen only msged afterwards to ask me to put in my order. She got super cold when I said I couldn't afford it right now and would think about it.

*Name changed

Okay, I know so many MLM products are crap. But I used Jamberry nails once and I'm not gonna lie, I really enjoyed them. I liked that they were stickers and not acrylic nails, I was good at applying them on my nails and they were fun and pretty. At the time I had tried them, I had NO IDEA what an MLM was, and was given a set on a whim from a rep's sister (the rep had actually already quit because they didn't make any money and had use given away tons of stock she couldn't sell, go figure.)

I had gone home and googled them for myself, but when I saw the price of the pieces was SO EXPENSIVE and that I couldn't just buy them, I just didn't bother. (Thanks past me for sniffing trouble even before you knew what an MLM was!) Since then, Jamberry has completley closed and I count that as a victory. But, I do still want nail stuff like that. On a whim today, I wanted to google a similar product but ALL I can find is acrylic nails, or Colourstreet nails (complete with raving reviews). Is there a product out there that is similar and NOT an MLM? I know that a real professional nail job is loads better than sticker nails. I do. But I like the look and feel of them on my nails better and I don't need it to last forever. Any suggestions?

So a friend of mine is a Jamberry rep. I don't mind the product and have bought from her a couple times so she often updates me on how she's going with it all. She's been at it for a couple of years and I don't think she does very well herself (doesn't have a team or anything) but I also don't think that worries her - she just loves the product and loves putting them on herself.

Anyway, she was chatting to me yesterday about it and it sounds like the company is in some deep financial trouble. They are merging with another company, M group or M network or something that sells some kind of 'nutrition' product (so nothing like what Jamberry sells). But apparently there've been issues with the merger somehow. We are in Australia and she said that no-ones orders have shipped from the Aussie warehouse in weeks, and they are now going to be shipped from the US. But they can't ship things like nail polish from the US to Aus (they are flammable and can't be sent?), so they are offering product credit (not refunds) to those customers and reps.

My friend isn't too worried for herself - she has no outstanding orders, but some of the people she knows have thousands of dollars worth of customer orders waiting to be shipped. Customers are getting angry so reps are giving the customers things from their own inventory if they have it, or buying/trading for them from other reps. So these reps are even more out of pocket trying to keep customers happy. Sounds like a complete and utter shit fight at the moment. They may not be around much longer it seems.

My MLM experiences - Mary Kay and Jamberry

When I was in college, I worked as a banker for a large national bank. One of my customers was a very smart, awesome lady who worked in the financial industry (I was majoring in finance also) and she sold Mary Kay. She talked me into checking it out and going to one of their giant meetings saying lots of those women might want bank accounts (yes, I fell for it). Long story short - they dazzled me into joining. I opened their credit card and bought inventory. My now-ex-husband always went with whatever I wanted to do and didn’t care about my involvement with MK. I was always the main bread winner so I didn’t need to ask permission I suppose anyway. I didn’t lose any money but I didn’t make any either. I had all this inventory that was hard to move, friends and family only buy so much. I ended up selling stuff at a discount to recoup my costs and got out after not even a year.

Fast forward to me being more of an “adult” haha. I now had a BS/BA in finance, banking, investments and Spanish and was finishing my MBA. someone’s wife was selling Jamberry and he brought the samples to work. I really liked them. I’ve been into doing nails my whole life and could never afford salon treatments. I wanted half the catalog so I joined with no intention to sell. My now-ex-husband lost his job right after, we had a 7 month old, so I thought ok I’ll try the selling. I did Facebook parties and they really went well for some time. I actually did make money and didn’t buy any “inventory” - I cashed in hostess rewards for my own parties though and did pretty well. I “ranked up” a few times and got cash bonuses and product credits. Kept track of spending. I stayed with Jamberry for three years, the initial income boost fizzled out but I still made enough to pay for my own stuff and I wasn’t losing money. In that time ex and I found Dave Ramsey, got out of debt, and then got a divorce. And Jamberry started doing some shady stuff - limiting hostess rewards for consultants, making sales quotas way harder to meet, and in general just making it hard to be a very low key seller like I was. And I eventually remarried and now had a 3.5 year old. I’ve don’t tons of vendor events selling wraps and those went well but I decided is it really worth it? Is it worth to spend a whole Saturday on my feet selling stuff? So even if I made $200 that day that’s still less an hour than I make at my real job. Not to mention the taxes and all of that at t