Melaleuca: Miracle or Marketing Ploy?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A friend of mine has given me the Melaleuca sales pitch. She is a good person, and obviously believes the whole thing sincerely. Clearly, this doesn’t preclude her being wrong.

My doctor tells me that taking vitamins is, by and large, a waste of money. He says that they aren’t absorbed by the body, and that Centrum, for one, is notorious for not even being digested. Melaleuca claims that by “bonding the vitamins to fructose,” the vitamins are absorbed by the body. Some of the explanation given with this had my propaganda detector buzzing, but I was shown what purported to be peer-reviewed studies supporting this.

So how about it, Dopers? Are Melaleuca vitamins worth the money? Anyone take them? What about all the other stuff they sell?

2

I’m agreeing with your doctor. They ain’t worth it. Eat right, and you get all the vital amines you need. Eat wrong in the US of A, and you still generally get about all you need, given that our food is fortified with lots of stuff. In borderline cases, most commercial multivitamins release enough into your system to make up any difference.

Now if you’ve had a gastric resection, or have a shortened bowel syndrome after surgery, you might need specific supplements. But the average person does not!

Qadgop,MD

3

What about other Melaleuca products? (Everything they sell is promoted as safer, more effective, etc). Is it all hype, or are there any truths to the claims? A friend of mine sells that stuff and swears by it, but a lot of it seems pricey.

4

I clean showrooms for the semi-annual furniture shows in my area and I do a lot of glass cleaning. I prefer the Melaleuca to other cleaners because it’s not as harsh and the cabinets and mirrors turn out real sparkly and stuff. It is expensive but you really don’t need much. I use about two capfuls in a five gallon bucket of warm water.

I would not, however, trust in unsubstantiated claims about its potential health benefits. Claiming that the vitamins are chained to a sugar that your body breaks down to glucose nearly instantaneously seems a bit spurious.

Also, I find it a bit odd that your doctor is so down on taking vitamin supplements. Did he offer any better justification than “Centrum isn’t completely digested?” After all, patients who suffer from vitamin deficiencies are initially given supplements to help remedy the situation and are told to eat more wisely.

5

My father and step-mother are Meleleuca converts and I’ve tried a few of the products. I love the bath soap and most of the cleaning products work pretty well. The antibiotic ointment is a wonderdrug. Small cuts heal incredibly quickly with it. As for the dietary supplements, I’m more than a bit leery of them but the old man swears by them. I tend to believe its more placebo than anything else, but…

IMO, only the soap and ointment are worth the money, and just barely at those prices.

6

I don’t know this product, but I do know vitamins and I get so pissed off at Doctors claiming they are not worth the cost. Any vitamin passing the FDA tests to get approval has to do what it claims it will. I take lots of vitamins because of the way I work, I often do not eat right and for a long time every winter I managed to get some nasty flue or a series of colds, until I started taking vitamins. I take a specific series that have proven themselves for me over the years.

Since I don’t often eat enough vegetables, I take certain amounts of A or betacarrotine (sp), certain amounts of C, folic acid, biotin and E. I rarely take Iron because too much iron can cause you problems. I’m pretty much approaching middle age now and don’t look it because my skin isn’t all droopy and wrinkly, I don’t have age spots, and I’m very alert. I take vitamins D and E for my skin and since I’m a smoker, I increased those vitamins containing antitoxins, just for good measure.

Now, the body will absorb only just what it wants in the way of vitamin supplements and you’ll pour the rest out in urine but some can be stored up and cause problems, like Vitamin A if you take too much. The same with Ferris sulfate - iron, and niacin and chromium picolate. If you don’t eat much fish, then fish oil supplements are good, having a little digestion problem? Fruit pectin tablets and amino acids help. B-6 gives you energy, and so does B-12, which also helps you mentally.

Sure you can get all of the vitamins you need from a well balanced diet, but in today’s highly stressful and often polluted world, you could use a bit of assistance, especially by taking antioxidants and antitoxins like C and E among others. Especially older folks need some ‘boosters’ like E and D for their thinning skin, among low dosages of others. Why do you think Geritol is popular?

Now, most doctors have no problem with you taking vitamins, many even recommend them, but they don’t want you pouring down tons of them as a magical cure-all because you can actually hurt yourself with megadoses of certain types, like vitamin A.

7

I had a roommate that was a Melaleuca salesman, so I got to use a lot of the products for free. I never really found that anything was as good as he claimed, and often was quite a lot worse. Neosporin or Bacitracin are much more effective than the antibiotic. My opinion is that it’s overpriced crap.

P.S. When they’re pitching the cleaners at you, they usually say something like “They’re so safe you could drink them!”. Make them prove it.

8

Xcheopis asked if my doctor had a reason for not liking vitamin supplements. I’m not sure, I suspect he sees a lot of people who take millions of weird and untested supplements, and then bring in web-page printouts to argue with his diagnosis of what ails them. I’m basing that on various comments over the years, not any specific comment.

The general consensus I’m getting is that the cleaning products are good, the soap is good, the antibiotic is either wonderful or useless, the vitamins are like any others, and all of it is overpriced.

Thanks for the input!

9

WAIT!!! You’re giving me the choice of a product that’s sold by a sole proprieter, at a profit, and you’re asking me if it’s claims are miraculous or simply a marketing ploy!!!#!!!

I KNOW WHICH ONE I"M CHOOSING!

MIRACLE! Because ANYONE can LIE about their product for MONEY, but it takes the REAL THING to claim it’s a MIRACLE PRODUCT!

The answer is SO SIMPLE!

–Tim

10

Is Melaleuca different from Amway?

11

OK, Homer, just back off a bit…Of course, now that you point it out, the simple brilliance of your analysis leaves me stunned. How could I have not seen it?

[looks around carefully] Is he gone yet? I sense a certain, I don’t know, vehemence about him that makes me uneasy. [relaxes somewhat]

Doug, it seems to me, without having had the full Amway presentation, and not having had the “how to make money selling Melaleuca” presentation, that the main difference is that Melaleuca is (allegedly) all-natural, organic, and good for you in a touchy-feely, new age kind of way, plus has the added cachet of being Australian. Amway is basic, solid, made the old-fashioned way with true American values by true Americans, who support motherhood and apple pie.

[Note: the foregoing are stereotypes, and could possibly be seen as mean-spirited, but I mean them in the kindest possible way, because I am a kind and gentle person. The intention is to be humorous, and if you are offended, I am truly sorry and take it all back.]

12

Is there a website? I’m presuming Melaleuca is tangentially connected with tea tree oil? Tea tree oil is useful - I’ve always got a bottle around the house but the rest of this sounds like marketing shite.

13

It is different buy not by much.

A friend gave us the sales pitch a few years ago but we actually bit. Personally I didn’t like ANY of their products but their biggest problem is ordering the damn stuff.

As a “precaution” to make sure you never run out of stuff to use, you must choose a package to be sent to you, should you not order for that month. But you get caught up in your work and life and come the end of the month, you try to put in your order, and the phone lines are filled solid. We ended up trying to call for HOURS some months. Then you finally get through, place your order, and later learn that the deadline for orders that month has already passed so you are getting TWO GALLONS of laundry detergent.

If you want to give it a try, but I wasn’t impressed.

14

These reviews are very interesting.
I work as a housekeeper ( I maintain 7 homes & a business on a regular basis) & have just come across this line of products.

Personally I LIKE the smell & effectiveness of many of the chemical products bought through a grocery store, but do know other people within my field who push ‘green products’ as their sales pitch & also know there are certain products out there that make me feel ill. Over the years I have used a large variety, but always come back to my preferred grocery store brands.

Upon looking for a way to increase my income I came across Melaleuca & saw advantages for me in multiple ways. I happened upon this forum looking for opinions & input before making a commitment & am happy to say I found them - thanks to all posters!

What I’m taking away from this is that the product is expensive & not necessarily better than what I’m already using, at a fraction of the price.

I dont like the idea of committing to spending a minimum amount every month - is this not avoidable? I’m a little confused about the whole thing, to be honest.
We’ve established that they carry cleaning products & vitamin supplements… anything else?

I will not be becoming a Melaleuca sales person.

15

If by interesting you mean “12 years old” I guess that’s interesting. With single malt scotch that means something. With reviews of bad cleaning products and unneeded vitamins, not so much.

16

A friend who pitched this stuff to me a few years back. She too said, “It’s so safe my child could EAT these products!” Well, he could eat vinegar and paper towels too, I suppose–that’s what I clean my windows with. It just seemed like a really strange way to buy into the marketing of something.

It kind of reminded me of when I was a soapmaker and people would look at the soap labels and say, “Olive oil, honey, oatmeal…I could eat this, right?” Well, yes, you could, but it’s still soap. You can eat dirt too, but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy or tastes good.

17

I know nothing about vitamins with fructose or otherwise, but Melaleuca chapstick is aMAZing. I will never use another chapstick.

18

My mother-in-law talked my wife into giving it a shot last year. Eventually my wife got tired of the rigamarole with monthly orders et al. but now she and several friends actually have my MiL order items for them fairly regularly.

The cleaning products (at least the Tough & Tender kitchen/surface cleaner and the super concentrated laundry detergent) seem to be fine, I’m not much of an expert but they do the job.

The body wash for men and the after shave lotion (both called Alloy) are actually quite nice, I enjoy the scent and use them regularly.

But as my wife and her friends learned, the trick is to find one person who’s really into the whole MLM aspect and just slip em a list and some cash every month or so.

19

Malaleuca is basically teatree oil. It was found to be effective as a anti-bacteria, and used during WWII (when penicillin was scarce). I found it useful against athlete’s foot. Other than that, just a smelly ointment.

20

I think some of the products are great for things like skin irritations and cleaning surfaces. Unfortunately, the MLM that pushes the Melaleuca products seems as shady as any other pyramid scheme.

Melaleuca was my one and only venture into selling (hey, I was young and gullible and thought I’d make tons of money!)

In addition to filling the orders you submit, they send you a monthly box of assorted products “just for you to try, so you’re familiar with everything we sell”. The box costs money (I forget the exact amount) plus shipping and arrives, whether you want it or not, with an invoice that must be paid immediately. I wasn’t interested in most of the contents of the boxes - some stuff was really quite obscure - and gave most of it away. Goodbye profits!

The biggest challenge was stopping the monthly box shipment. I concluded that only the threat of legal action got them to cease sending the boxes.