Lux Alkazar

Drinking the Girl Boss Kool-Aid

Lux aLkazar

Note: the following is an opinion piece recommending you do your research before using supplement products.

When I was eighteen, I nearly joined a multilevel marketing (MLM) organisation.

I’d moved out of home and was working full-time in retail for the first time in my life. After working a long shift and coming home to find no one who was going to make dinner for me, I quickly got into the pattern of spending my new expendable income on fast food. It was great ‘til it wasn’t, and unsurprisingly, I started to feel groggy and run down.

Then one day I got a message:

“Hey Hun! How have you been? I don’t know if you’ve seen my posts, but I’ve started using [supplement company] and it’s completely changed my life. I love it so much that I’ve decided to become a coach. I’d love to send you some info. Do you have any health and wellness issues right now? It’s especially great for energy and weight loss.”

Okay, look. I know these types of messages and ‘hunbots’ are a well-known meme at this point. Without outing how old I am, I’ll just say this — it was a while ago and it was the first time I’d ever seen this kind of message, let alone been on the receiving end of it. I’d never heard of this company.

It was from a girl I’d always been friendly with in high school. Most of my friends had moved away to start university, so to be honest, I was pleased to hear from her. The idea of grabbing a coffee with someone was tempting enough in itself, even if she was only reaching out to try and sell me something. I also felt a little paranoia sneak in, wondering if she’d seen me at work recently and was hinting that I looked tired and had gained weight.

With my work hours it was hard to find a time to meet up, so we ended up planning something for the following month. But, in the meantime, she’d add me to a Facebook group full of lovers of this supplement company from all over Australia, so I could get some shake recipe ideas and be inspired by the success stories.

Being in this group meant their posts took over the majority of my Facebook feed; so many smiling people in activewear holding these amazing drinks. Their lives were so good! They looked and felt incredible! Their energy and confidence had skyrocketed! And they were so rich! That’s right, not only was this supplement a way to improve your health, but a lucky few people could be chosen to become coaches and help others. The financial possibilities were limitless.

I’ve always been a cynical person, but I wanted to believe them so badly. I was starting to feel pretty miserable with my lifestyle, and these people seemed like they had an answer for everything. That was until one day I saw an article about lead levels in the products and a possible connection to kidney failure. I shared the link with the group asking if anyone knew anything about it. My post was deleted within a minute, and I was removed from the group within five.

I received several messages, one from my high school pal, but also from people I didn’t know. They were all basically the same — sickly sweet with passive aggression and lots of stats and figures about all the people the company had helped, with few quips about my attitude and suggestions that I stop trying to make trouble.

I expressed that I didn’t like the way my question was handled, and felt like the admins had something to hide if no open discussion was allowed. I was blocked by all of them except for the original girl, who did check in every few months to see if I was interested in coming to her information/shake taste tester nights – until she eventually stopped selling by the end of the year.

So, yeah. That was my very short and limited experience with this supplement company. I’m going to skip the part where I tell you about all the company’s controversies, because if I did that, I’d be filling up this whole magazine. Plus, it’s now 2021, and you probably already know about it, and if you don’t know about it, there’s plenty to see online. YouTube is a pretty good place to start.

But the CliffNotes are: history of dangerous ingredients; predatory sales techniques; taking advantage of marginalised people; covering up health side effects; endless lawsuits; and total BS. Because they have such a bad reputation now, it’s been several years since I’ve actually heard anyone talk about the company, apart from the jokes on the internet. But I’m here to tell you, they’ve been making a comeback.

You might have noticed there have been several new café-type things popping up around Perth and beyond — in Alkimos, Albany, Bunbury, Pinjarra, Fremantle, everywhere. Can you see where I’m going with this?

I won’t lie, it’s kind of a genius idea. The ultimate rebrand. If potential customers keep turning their noses up when you try and pedal your supplement powder, blend it up for them and sell it in a cup with a new label, at a major markup, and they don’t ever need to know what’s in it. Plus, you also get to gain points and climb the ranks for all the product you’re buying. And of course, now you can advertise with endless #buylocal and #supportsmallbusiness hashtags.

The drinks are sold as loaded teas and smoothies/shakes. The stores are all really similar in aesthetic, marketing, and menus (duh, they’re all selling the same thing). I’m not going to list all the stores, because having an army of hunbots come after me once in my life was enough, but consider anything alluding to sipping, gulping, blending, or mixing in the name to be a red flag. Or anything called a ‘nutrition studio’. Or anyone offering a dollar discount if you post about it online.

I’ve contacted a handful of the stores with a simple, “hey, do your drinks contain this company’s supplement?” and received a grand total of zero replies. The only place I’ve seen owners fess up is in replies to Google reviews from angry people who feel misled and tricked after buying drinks. And it’s always

in a very defensive, “we’re totally transparent about this” and, “well, we never said it wasn’t this supplement”.

Apart from mentioning it to friends and family, I had no intention of writing about this. But then I saw they had started to market towards children. The thing that really got me was a post of a cute little boy holding a shake advertising that ‘kid’s cups are now available’ in big text, with much much smaller text at the bottom saying that a kid’s cup is to be shared between two children. Could this be because a full cup might be potentially dangerous to a child? What about pregnant or breastfeeding mothers? Or people who already take supplements? Or people with existing health conditions?

There are thousands of people who have shared stories on the physical, financial, and social ways this company has hurt them. I think people deserve to know what they’re buying, and I believe the people starting these stores are being purposefully deceitful. Yes, I’m sure that if you walked into one and asked face-to-face, they would tell you. But why would the average unassuming person do that? If they want to sell supplements, go ahead, but put the name and logo on the building, on the menu, and on the advertisements.

They won’t though, because they know that people trust this product about as far as they can spit it.

THEY WON’T THOUGH, BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT PEOPLE TRUST THIS PRODUCT ABOUT AS FAR AS THEY CAN SPIT IT.