What is Nu Skin Enterprises? My Nu Skin Review

I first heard about Nu Skin several years ago. I was fresh out of university, and working in my first professional job. I worked in an office that housed three separate business. I was employed as a researcher, and I used to sit at the front desk and greet clients as they came in, answered phones, and generally helped out as an office assistant as well for all three businesses. One of those businesses happened to be a Nu Skin distributor who would bring her potential clients into the office where all the products were set up. Her name was Margaret. I remember her being an elegant and professional lady who dressed beautifully. One day I asked her if I could attend one of her meetings as though I was a potential client, and she gladly obliged.

I don’t recall much of her sales pitch now, other than that she said she makes money while she sleeps. I remember being quite impressed with her presentation, and the potential clients were too. I didn’t sign up though, because at the time I wanted to use my newly acquired Masters degree, and recognised immediately that I didn’t have the gift of the gab like Margaret did.

At the time I had thought to myself that Margaret must have been doing pretty well in order to rent an office specifically for her ‘work at home’ business which I knew she only did a few days per week. I got to know Margaret reasonably well that year. It turns out she held some very senior appointments in her career, and this was her side business. I googled Margaret out of interest as I was preparing to write this point, and Margaret has been the CEO of a company for several years now.

So was Margaret onto something with Nu Skin?

Is Nu Skin a Scam or Legit?

In this Nu Skin review we’ll find out if Nu Skin is worth your time and effort. We will answer the question ‘is Nu Skin a scam or legit’?

Nu Skin is a multi level marketing (MLM) company.

In most MLMs, there are two main ways you can earn money:

1. By selling a product that is not sold in retail stores. In order to obtain the product you must order through a distributor, or on a distributor’s website, and
2. By receiving commissions from the sales of your downline (i.e. people you recruit into your network)

What this means is you need to able to sell products to people. If you genuinely want to be successful in a MLM company, you need to be recruiting new distributors who are also selling a lot of products. In the latter scenario, as well as selling products, you need to be able to sell the ‘lifestyle opportunity’ as well. Nu Skin recognise this, and have built it into their vision and mission:

The mission of Nu Skin is “to be a force for good throughout the world by empowering people to improve lives with rewarding business opportunities, innovative products, and an enriching, uplifting culture.”

Their vision is “to become the world’s leading business opportunity platform.”

Let’s take a look at Nu Skin.

Some basic information about Nu Skin:

• Website: https://www.nuskin.com
• Founded by: Blake Roney, Sandie Tillotson and Steve Lund
• In operation since:1984
• Price to join: $35 plus annual fee of $20
• Recommended: Yes, but only if you like MLMs and are familiar with the model so know what you’re getting into; AND have mad MLM sales skills (this may only be about 1% of people who read this review)

Looking at their website, Nu Skin appear to have a genuine commitment to giving back to the community, and I applaud them for that. If only more companies would do the same.

My Nu Skin review will take you through the following sections:

• What is Nu Skin and how does Nu Skin work?
• How do you get paid with Nu Skin?
• Is Nu Skin legit?
• My recommended way of making money online

What is Nu Skin and how does Nu Skin Work?

Nu Skin offers a broad range of personal care products. Their product line covers:

• ageLOC – to diminish the appearance of aging
• Galvanic Spa – products that bring the day spa home to you
• Nu Skin 180 Anti-Aging – products to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and boost collagen
• Tru-Phasic White – a skin brightening system
• Pharmanex – supplements, nutrients, weight management
• Nutricentials – daily skin care products
• Nu Skin Clear Action – to clear blemishes
• Tru Face targeted treatments
• Peels, masks and scrubs
• Moisturisers
• Men’s care
• Body cleansers
• Body exfoliants
• Body moisturisers
• Haircare – shampoos, conditioners, treatments
• Epoch – body, oils and hair
• Oral care
• Sun protection
• Cosmetics

I have never used or purchased a Nu Skin product, so I can’t share any personal experiences with the products.

The Nu Skin Compensation Plan

With Nu Skin, there are a few different ways you can earn, however reading the compensation plan (“Velocity”) made my head hurt and prompted me to pour myself a gin and tonic.

In a nutshell, there appear to be three main ways to earn money with Nu Skin – through retail sales, through building a team, and through leading others to build their own businesses:

The compensation plan is quite detailed, and is available here.

Is Nu Skin A Scam or Legit? It’s LEGIT! But…

MLM is a legitimate business model and Nu Skin is no different. Whilst it isn’t for everyone, you can earn money. It is all about moving as much product as possible for maximum income, and recruiting others to do the same.

Nu Skin has A+ rating with the BBB, which for a MLM is excellent:

So with a great BBB rating (albeit with an alert flag against them, I’m not sure for what), I went on the hunt for Nu Skin reviews. I don’t know why I expected to see horrible things, but that was not what I found. I didn’t find Nu Skin on sitejabber, so I went to Consumer Affairs. The feedback here was balanced. Of 63 ratings, there were more positives than negatives:

Here’s an example of a negative one that kinda sums up how I feel about MLMs in general:

I did find a rather damning post from Ethan Vanderbuilt, who researched Nu Skin quite extensively. You can find the post here. To summarise some legal issues highlighted by Ethan:

• 1992: Nu Skin reached settlements with 5 states which had accused the company of deceptive advertising and overstating the income earned by distributors.
• 1994: Nu Skin paid $1 million to the FTC and signed a consent decree prohibiting it from making deceptive or unsubstantiated claims about its products.
• 1997: Nu Skin paid an additional $1.5 million to the FTC to settle ongoing allegations of unsubstantiated promotional claims.
• 2012: Nu Skin was exposed for double-listing distributors to make it appear there were more successful distributors than there actually was.
• 2014: China fined NU Skin Enterprises, Inc. more than $500,000 for illegal product sales and misleading local consumers.

What you REALLY need to know about MLMs

It’s important to know a few statistics about MLMs.

Jon Taylor PhD, in “The Case For (and Against) Multi-level Marketing” published by the FTC, researched MLMs and his research found:

• In the first year of operation, a minimum of 50% of representatives drop-out.
• After five years of operation, a minimum of 90% of representatives have left the company.
• By year 10, only those at or near the top have not dropped out – approximately 95% of representatives have dropped out by then.

It appears that Nu Skin follows this same pattern. I found a Nu Skin compensation summary document for the Asia Pacific region here.

This is the high level snapshot:

An ‘active’ brand affiliate (distributor) is someone who actually qualified for commission in any given month.

As you can see, the average active brand affiliate earned just $41 per month ($492 across the year) in commissions. This amount does not include any expenses they may have incurred. These figures also don’t take into account how many of these products were bought by the brand affiliate personally just to enable them to remain ‘active’ and qualify for any commission at all.

When Nu Skin say that 16.4% of the active brand affiliates earned a commission payment, I’m reading that as meaning 83.6% of them didn’t, despite them meeting the requirements of being able to commission (presumably through purchasing a minimum amount of products for themselves).

It’s not looking so good is it?

Considering all of the above, do I believe that Nu Skin is worth your time and effort? I would suggest that for most people, the answer is a resounding no.

Don’t want to annoy your friends and family? Want to create a genuine online business?

If you don’t want to hassle your family and friends with products that they don’t want or need, there is a much better to start a new career from home.

Affiliate marketing is my favourite way to make money from home.

The affiliate marketing steps are:

1. Choose an interest
2. Build a website
3. Attract visitors to your website
4. Earn revenue when they make purchases from your site (via affiliate links)

You’ll be shown how to build your very own niche website and learn how to attract visitors (using free methods), you can repeat this with as many of your own websites as you like. Think of the potential right there!

You don’t need experience, and you don’t need to be technical.

You will be taught everything you need to know.

One of the best things about it – you don’t need to sell anything to your friends and family!

Build your own website that is uniquely yours that will grow with you. The sky is the limit! To learn how, just click here:

Have you had any experience with Nu Skin or with other MLMs? What did you think?

If you have any comments or questions please leave them below, and I’m always happy to help you out.