Seint? More like predator…

Multi-level marketing schemes, the lot of ‘em!

Seint was founded in 2013 by Cara Brook, and markets itself as a makeup company made for women to do their makeup easier, to simplify the makeup routine. According to the Seint website, Brook had the idea when she was 11-years-old, creating a science fair project about it.  

When Brook got older, she became a beauty blogger under the title “Maskcara,” which might be a brand that you’ve heard of. Brook seems to believe that the makeup industry is solely about shilling out products to insecure women who feel like they need more and more to meet society’s standard. 

Brook wanted to make products that were simple and celebrated everyone’s beauty. According to Seint, she’s the first person to ever do that. 

Despite claiming that her entire brand and purpose is to enhance and embrace the beauty women already have, Brook herself has gotten several plastic surgery procedures. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it gives doubt to her products and her mission if even she doesn’t abide by it.  

In 2020, the company officially changed their name from Maskcara to Seint. On their website, they say it’s because the name Seint is a better reflection of what they’re trying to accomplish with the company and the products. They compare make-up to saints, like in Catholicism. “Cultivating beauty is a sacred work; the work of saints.”  

But, that’s not the only reason they changed the name. 

When you look back at their 2020 rebrand, the only thing that really changed was names. All of the products stayed the same, the website stayed the same, only the company name and the name of certain products were changed. 

It raises a few red flags. Why would a successful company known under one name suddenly up and change their entire brand overnight? 

Because there was a lawsuit. 

In 2020, a woman named Kirsten Tyrrel sued Maskcara Industries. These days Tyrrel is a business consultant, but before that she was an Artist for Maskcara. 

By Artist, I mean she was a distributor for the multi-level marketing (MLM) side of Maskcara. 

In 2017, the brand announced their Artist Program, which is really just people joining the MLM scheme. Artists pay a monthly fee to have their own subpage in the website for people to buy from.  

Artists are sent a $139 Artist Kit (pre-assembled) and are expected to start hawking Seint makeup to friends and family so they can make commission off of their purchases, while the person the artist signed up under – the upline – gets money too. 

People on Reddit who claim to have been a part of Seint/Maskcara in the past say that Tyrrel and Brook used to be very close when Tyrrel was still a part of it. 

The lawsuit states that Tyrell had her commissions denied and she was suspended under wrongful pretenses. Maskcara responded that Tyrell had been buying ranks which Tyrell denied. According to a Medium article about MLMs, “Rank buying is a simple idea that you and your director will do whatever you need to do, pay whatever you need to pay, to move you up the ladder or keep you active in the MLM.”  

The author of that article says she and her director, or upline, would give her some orders that weren’t her clients’, the upline would order from her director, and the author would order products for herself. The point of rank buying is just to make sure the monthly quota is hit.  

There isn’t too much more out there publicly about the lawsuit. Online rumors claim that Tyrrel’s rank buying was done using fake names and claiming they were part of her downline (artists that work under her or on her team) while using credit cards to buy products under those names. Since she was doing that, she got bonuses and so did others in her downline. 

Seint’s big claim to fame is their “demi” method, which is just spot correcting and not the “revolutionary technique” they claim it is. Their other big thing is the palettes that have everything you need for one make-up routine. Their palette builder lets you add highlighter, contour, blush, setting powder, bronzer, eyeshadow, eyeliner, lip liner, and more into one palette.  

The largest size IIID Palette 18 with 18 tins, the size you need to include at least one of everything, completely full costs $500. So, yes, you can live Brook’s dream and have a simple, easy, all-in-one container beauty routine, but it’ll cost you $500. 

I took a look at a Seint “Artist” sales page from an Artist who had been in the MLM for less than three months. The cheapest product was $54 (on sale) for three highlighters. The most expensive product was $400 for one of the largest collections with two brushes, three highlighters, one contour, one bronzer, three lip-cheek combos, one illuminator, eyeliner, five eyeshadows, and the palette itself.   

Seint is also an MLM that discloses their income and the income of their artists. 

In the United States, there are 13,069 artists in the Artist I tier as of 2022, but only 6,434 artists are actually active. The highest annual earner in the group made $874 a year. The jump to the Artist II level money-wise is big. 5,271 active artists, and the top earner made $62,781. The jump to Artist III is even bigger. Only 44 artists in this rank are active, and the highest earner made $943,508 in 2022.  

The highest rank is Artist X, of which there is only one artist who reportedly isn’t even active, yet made $2.3 million dollars in 2022 and it took them 47 months of growth to make that much.  

The total average earnings were $2,162.85. In Canada, the highest ranked are only in Artist VII and make an average of $162,166 a year, and the highest earner made $361,818. 

So, what’s left to say about Seint Beauty? 

It’s extremely overpriced. The cheapest make-up products are tiny, single eyeshadow tins for $20, a makeup sponge for the same price, or a small pack of paper to blot out oil and sweat for $16. You’ll also probably break out since most people online, who aren’t part of the MLM claiming they tried it, say that they got some serious acne after using it.  

If you try to join Seint as an Artist, you’ll probably make less than $1,000 a year, which doesn’t include the cost of getting your Artist Kit, keeping your spot on their website, and meeting your quotas.