After swearing to myself that I would back away from Arbonne ... I've gone ahead and done the opposite. *sigh*

I first heard of this company at a massage program for busy moms. The program was intended to allow busy moms who just couldn't get the time away from their babies to pamper themselves. 15 minutes for $15 while other moms take care of your baby. It was too good to pass up. Of course a 15 minute massage does nothing to rid me of the million knots in my neck and shoulders but at least it's a start. In any case, at this program were 2 Arbonne consultants showing off their product line. They did a complimentary skin care and make up demo on each of us. To be honest, I didn't even really want to get a makeup application in the middle of some random day but as usual, I was too shy/polite to decline. However, I'm actually pretty glad that I went with it because I was quite impressed with the products. I don't know if it was a combination of all the products or one of them in particular but my skin felt smooth, soft and despite the crazy heat was still not greasy the next morning. That's pretty impressive!

While talking with the Arbonne girls, they told me about the Arbonne opportunity. "Oh, it's like Avon," I said. And then they scoffed. The Arbonne business isn't structured in the same way so it's far more lucrative, they said. Basically Avon has expanded to sell a bunch of everything and it's all purchased from catalogue for a very cheap price. Due to the cheap price, your commissions as a consultant would be much lower. In addition, you've got to continuously hunt for the business so it's a lot more like door to door sales. Arbonne is different. First off the price point is higher so that alone gives you a higher commission. But also, once you sign someone up once all of their repeat orders get credited to you as well even though the client will actually be placing their repeat orders on their own through the phone or internet. Rather than continuously hunting for new sales, you're really just building up a network. I was intrigued ... and even more so when I realised that these Arbonne girls were young mothers like me and that through Arbonne they found a way to work part-time while still earning a very decent living and being able to spend time with their children. Now I was definitely intrigued.

I thought and thought - could I make this work for me? I thought so much that I became thoroughly obsessed with the prospect and couldn't even get a wink of sleep that night. I'm not big on sales because I lack the confidence to believe that people will buy something from me ... but the thing about Arbonne is that you're not really asking anyone to spend new money but rather to spend the money that they already spend on their skin care products on this healthier organic all-around better product. Makes sense. But then I got obsessed and annoyed and discouraged so I changed my mind about selling.

I was still impressed with the actual products though. In comes Joanna who is also kind of interested in starting up a skin care regimen. Like me, she doesn't use much of anything at this point but feels that it's probably about time to start. So I asked those Arbonne girls to come back and give us a demo. They left us with 3 days of sample so we'll see how it goes. I must say that after 2 uses I'm definitely feeling great. My skin is very soft, very smooth and very non-greasy. I'm sold.

If Joanna decides to go for it, I'm going to sign up as a Preferred Client for $35 which will allow me to purchase $840 worth of products for half price. Joanna and I would then split both the cost and the loot. It would come out to $225 for each of us and we'd get the full 6 daily skin care products plus have some spare to get a couple of more things here and there. It's pricey, I know ... but it's no more expensive than any other skin care line. I checked at Shoppers and everything was priced either the same or more expensive. The difference is that these products are natural and organic and don't have harmful chemicals. Plus I've been using NeoStrata from Shoppers which isn't really cheaper and I'm not really even seeing any results.

So Joanna and I were talking about how we probably could run this business and be consultants. We were even talking about doing it together and splitting the commissions. We probably could but she, like me, just lacks the confidence in her ability to "sell." Personally, I just don't know who I would even really ask to buy it. Becoming a preferred client costs $35 and would give me 20% all future purchases. Becoming a consultant costs $130 and would give me 35-50% off all future purchases plus I'd receive some sort of commission on all sales made. If I just had a little bit of confidence it would probably be quite a worthy venture.

I think that my aunt would maybe be interested. I think she would at least try the products. She does currently use some kind of products so it wouldn't be new money spent for her. Maybe Zvi's mom too. But aside from that, I don't think any of my friends really use much of anything yet and I think they will see it as a lot of money to spend. Never know until you try though.

Before I went on mat leave, I asked Zvi if he thought I should sign up with Avon to try to make some money while I was off. But he didn't really think so. He said he'd support me if I wanted to try but that he didn't really think that our friends would want to buy those kinds of things for me so he didn't really think I should bother. I agreed. But I was trying to find a way to supplement my income and also (in my dream world) find a way to not have to return to work when the time comes. Then Arbonne comes along.

No matter what I'm going to purchase the products for myself ... so the question really becomes is it worth it to spend $100 more and try to earn some money by spreading the word? And if Joanna and I try to do it together, then it would only be $50 more. If Zvi is reading this (I'm sure he got bored with this paragraphs ago) then his eyes are probably rolling back into his head ... but I think it's something at least worth considering.