I recently went to a military wives get together where we had the owner of a salon come in and give us tips, advice, and did a makeover on one of the ladies. People had sent in questions before hand and then she also took questions the night of. Someone asked "My friend sells Mary Kay and told me that I have to use all the same brand of makeup on my face. If I use different brands for different things it's like causing chemical warfare on my face!". I burst out laughing when I heard this! I can't believe that they are scaring people into buying their products now!!! Of course the lady told everyone..."No that is not true" but she did go on to say that with hair care and such the products are created to work with each other and work best with all the same brand/line.

OMG!  I said that to people!  I need smacked!!!

In hindsight, I'm thinking how is it in one breath I could say that mess but in another talk about using the best ingredients for making a cake and how that is like using MK?  Because the last I checked, Betty Crocker did not carry a brand of eggs, oil, milk, salt, sugar and so on! 

This is the point where I'm banging my head on the keyboard but in the defense of people who've said that, is it possible that others were making an assumption based on the hair care products, cause that's kind of what I was figuring.   

I've heard it and said it.  LOL
Oh and the haircare thing isn't true either.  Read Paula Begoun's "Don't Go Shopping for Hair-Care Products Without Me" for more info.

Make-up and skin care are different.

Using different brands of lipstick, eyeliner, blush, etc will not cause warfare on your face because they are not being applied in the same areas (hopefully!)

However, using varying brands of skin care CAN cause some incompatibilities between brands to manifest on your face.  The salon owner was correct in that most brands are formulated to work together. 

I tell my customers, "I don't care what you use to wash and moisturize your face, just that you use the same line, whatever that may be.  I'd love it to be Mary Kay, but if not, just be consistent."  The goal is clear, clean skin.  MK is not the only way to achieve.

Makeup for color cosmetics never comes into the discussion.

Hi Ginger,

No need to argue, I think we're just coming from different perspectives and experience possibly. 

I'm a licensed make-up artist in my state and a large part of our licensing program was learning about skin care, various products, how they are made and how they react on skin.  We received the same initial training that licensed cosmetologists and estheticians receive in the first part of their programs.  The initial training is all the same and then we break off into the specialities we're interested in (mine was Make-Up Artistry).

There are only so many ways a cleanser, moisturizer, toner, etc can be made and only so many ways to combine the ingredients that go into them.  When lines start specializing in different products for oily vs. dry vs. combination skin, they start changing the types and proportions of ingredients used.  These combo's/formulas are generally proprietary to their line, and if one were to mix those lines to handle a specific skin problem (oiliness, dryness, t-zone, etc) the combination of products may not work as effectively as using products formulated to work together.  Whether or not it will cause "warfare" on any particular face is a function of the user's sensitivity and the relative difference found in products across lines.

That is what I was taught by a licensed professional and it has been consistent with my experience in and out of Mary Kay. 

What I ultimately took away from my training was that it doesn't matter that much WHAT you wash your face with, just that you do.  Same for moisturizing.  That is what I tell my customers.  I despise scripts and I'm very much the rebel when it comes to shooting down MK-ism's that get floated around.

And yep, I've known about (and read) Paula's book(s) for years.  It, among many, was on our reading list in licensing class.

If using the products that way works for her, why fix what ain't broke?  LOL!!!

I go between TimeWise and Classic all the time and have never had a problem.

Your Director needs to chill.  Why does she know what your clients are using anyway?  It's none of her business!