Parenting

From The Confessional: Comfy Leggings Or Not, MLMs Are A Big LuLa-NO

by Karen Johnson
LuLaRoe Leggings
Jeremy Drey/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty

Okay, here’s MY confession: I own LuLaRoe leggings. One pair. So does my daughter. Someone sent them to us for free—years ago—in exchange for a social media promo. And TBH, I have thoughts. First of all, I did not like one single pattern she offered me, so I chose the least hideous option and they go with literally nothing I own. HOWEVER. These are hands-down the most comfortable leggings I have ever put on my body. They feel like fucking butter. Are they shape-shifting and butt-lifting and all the magical things $100 Lululemons or Spanx are? Nope. Do I care? Nope. Because comfortable is my love language. Even if they are some weird-ass green color with orange triangles on them. (Like WHAT IS THIS PATTERN?)

And my animal-loving daughter? She hit the jackpot because the consultant sent her leggings with foxes on them. Foxes!! They were, again, a bizarre color (burnt orange, maybe?) and matched nothing, but she wore those suckers forever. They are a size 5 and she STILL wears them as capri leggings, years later. (She’s in 5th grade.)

My point is, I get it, LuLaRoe peeps. I really do. At the height of the legging / MLM / “Be your own boss!” craze when we all wanted to make some cash and we all wanted to never have to wear real pants ever again, the LuLaRoe concept duped a lot of us. Their leggings were comfortable AF and not too pricey. So we bought. And we bought and we bought and we bought. And a lot of us started to sell, too.

And that’s when shit went really bad.

I own a few lularoe pieces and I get compliments on them all the time. My confession is that I don't think all of it is ugly (lots, yes, but not all) and it is super comfy!

Confessional #25792393

I'm not crazy about how I look in my lularoe leggings, but damn! They are so comfortable! And forgiving!

Confessional #11459400

A week ago I thought Lularoe was stupid. I bought a pair from a friend to support her in her business venture. Now I have 9 pairs, and plan to never wear pants again.

Confessional #1783796

This toxic MLM company preyed on women with one primal need—comfort. We are sitting on the floor with our toddlers. We are running 84 errands a day, wrangling babies in and out of car seats. We are changing diapers, heating up bottles, wiping spit up off the cat, and folding tiny socks for hours on end. For the love, just give us some damn comfy pants. We don’t even care if the patterns look like hotel carpet because we’re covered in peanut butter and jelly anyway. (And LuLaRoe said, “We gotchu.”)

I hate that stupid LuLaRoe crap but I saw a pair of Winne the Pooh leggings and now i’ve joined two groups and ordered three pair but missed out on my “unicorn. (Original pair I wanted!) They got my money and my soul.”

Confessional #11261199

I have to will myself to have sex. Even give myself prizes... ok you can have 3 new pairs of LuLaRoe leggings because you put out this week. Wtf has happened to me;( I used to love it, now I'm a whore for leggings.

Confessional #2348255

I dont know which is my confession: that i actually own lularoe leggings OR that they no longer fit me! :(

Confessional #6501706

So yeah, many of us got sucked in when LuLaRoe hit the stage. Looking back, we don’t know what hit us, but we do know our drawers started filling up fast.

I've been at work for 7 hours now and all I've accomplished is finding the LuLaRoe Disney Randy I've been on the hunt for.

Confessional #4988949

Omg! In the last 2 weeks I spent over a THOUSAND $$ on Lularoe!! I discovered it a month ago & I'm addicted!!! I have NEVER EVER done this! It just happened!!! i think I need to give up shopping for lent. I can't stop!!

Confessional #2813385

My DH would shit bricks if he knew how much I've spent on LuLaRoe in the past 6 months.

Confessional #1772169

LulaRoe is going to make me go bankrupt.

Confessional #1768691

And while our closets and drawers filled up, our bank accounts drained. And our partners didn’t know what TF was going on, other than seeing a constant rotation of obnoxiously bright leggings covered in geometric shapes, or fireworks, or jack-o-lanterns, or giant cat faces on our legs, and on our crotches, and on our asses.

It annoys me when my SIL calls herself a "small business owner" or "entrepreneur". You sell LuLaRoe clothing. And PLEASE STOP buying inventory. 10,000 pieces in your garage is called DEBT. I want my nephews to be able to afford college.

Confessional #25790611

My friend is so obsessed with buying LuLaRoe clothes, I am convinced she has an actual mental disorder. She sent me a pic of her closet and there must have been 300 LLR shirts. Apparently she has another closet for pants. And she's always crying broke.

Confessional #15322468

My college friend sells Posh and Lularoe and I'm embarrassed for her.

Confessional #24867015

Lularoe tights are so ugly!! I can't say that IRL because my friend is a distributor I got so tired of the stupid videos and live sales I unfollowed her on FB. She doesn't know

Confessional #7726922

Maybe you never got sucked in—maybe you saw this train wreck MLM bullshit for what it was (and how unattractive the product they were peddling also was) from day 1 and steered clear. But I’ll bet you had a friend, or a cousin, or a neighbor, or a relative who went all in, didn’t you? And you cringed in embarrassment and had to dodge their invites to “host a party!” (Ugh, hard pass, Kathy.)

I wholeheartedly support my friends who love Lularoe but I personally think it looks like hotel carpet.

Confessional #5021799

I never got on the Lularoe leggings bandwagon. No grown woman needs to be wearing pizza slices, puppies, and cheeseburgers on her body. Also the fact the company refused to sell solid colors was stupid.

Confessional #23172157

Every time I see the outfits in the LulaRoe promo photos, I puke in my mouth a little. I mean, those ensembles are GODAWFUL. Who wears that shit?? I know no one that does. The last thing on earth a woman needs to look is "whimsical." Fuck, it's BAD!

Confessional #22633716

I think 99% of lularoe stuff is hideous. It therefore sucks that about 99 of my face book friends sell it. Bleh.

Confessional #1782212

I mean honestly, why were the patterns so hideous? What about “let’s make everyone look like they’re wearing a rug you’d find at the dentist’s office!” sounded appealing? But it worked, so I guess they knew what they were doing.

I don’t think ANYONE looks good in LulaRoe. I don’t get the love.

Confessional #21193742

I have zero understanding of the Lularoe leggings obsession. I probably have to turn in my woman card now.

Confessional #3353446

I think LulaRoe and Lipsense are overpriced and tacky.

Confessional #7978786

I think most LulaRoe clothes are frumpy and I don't get what the appeal is

Confessional #4055757

If you never joined in this craze, you may have felt like an outsider at one point, when everyone on your street was hosting a LuLaRoe party. “Girls night! Drink some wine and do some shopping!” and you were like “WTF NO WHY. I’d rather stab my eyes out with toothpicks.” Well, most of us have seen the light, now, even if we didn’t back then. We see just how fucked up the MLM model—especially this one—really was. And we see now how those Winnie the Pooh leggings, as it turns out, were not actually the “great buy” we thought they were.

We know all that now.

The truth is, though, the LuLaRoe cult was real, and MLMs continue to prey on women to this day. Look out for your friends. Support them if they’re actually on a good, sound investment path and are doing something they’re passionate about and that brings them joy. But if they are lighting money on fire to “be their own boss!” when “being their own boss” requires purchasing thousands of dollars worth of cheaply made “merch” they now have to harass their friends and family to buy, you gotta step in and be the friend that calls bullshit on that. Save your friends before it’s too late.

And even more importantly, save yourself.