It's A Little Known Fact: The Original Independent Beauty Consultants Mary Kay Ash started her dream company from humble beginnings with her life savings of $5,000, the support of her family and nine Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants. It’s a little known fact that one of the original nine was Mary Kay Ash’s own daughter, Marylyn Reed. None of the original nine Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants are alive today, but Marylyn’s daughter, Rosslyn Alexander, who is Mary Kay Ash’s oldest granddaughter, remembers the very beginnings of a company that has grown to become one of the largest direct sellers of skin care and color cosmetics in the world.
(Eight of the nine original Independent Beauty Consultants at Seminar 1967. Marylyn Reed is second from right.)
“We lived three houses down from Grandmother when she started talking about the idea of starting a company and I was 11 or 12 at the time,” said Rosslyn. “She had a successful career in direct sales but Grandmother was frustrated with getting a fishing rod or a briefcase as a recognition award and not having the opportunity to move up in her field. She wanted to change that.”
And boy did she change it. Recognized today as one of America’s greatest female entrepreneurs, Mary Kay Ash stepped out into a man’s world in 1963 to blaze a new path for women.