I tried the Wellness Box from Melaleuca so you don’t have to. If you spend any time on Instagram you’ve probably seen quite a few influencers promoting “The Wellness Company” and have wondered what exactly is it? I’ve been on a clean living journey since 2020 and I’ll be honest with you, it can be exhausting and frustrating to research ingredients, test products that don’t meet your standards, and find out they aren’t as clean as they claim. This is why I decided to test The Wellness Company. I was sold on the fact that all of their products have clean ingredients… or so I thought. In this post, I’ll share the truth about the Wellness Box, what I experienced when I was a customer, what I thought about the products, and why I quit buying Melaleuca products. 

In this post I’ll cover:

•  What is The Wellness Box (Also called The Wellness Company and Melaleuca)
• What types of products does The Wellness Company sell?
• How does The Wellness Company work?
• If The Wellness Box is a MLM or Multi Level Marketing company?
• If the Wellness Box products are as clean as they claim
• Can you buy Melaleuca if you’re not a member?
• Do you have to order every month from Melaleuca?
• And more…

What is The Wellness Box?

The Wellness Box, Also known as The Wellness Company or Melaleuca and was founded over 30 years ago in the United States- Idaho falls to be specific. Melaleuca founder Frank Vandersloot says they are a health and wellness retailers that develops “natural products backed by science”. They say they are the largest online wellness shopping club in North America. Melaleuca offers a wide array of goods that are not only derived from nature but also scientifically tested, with many protected by patents. They also clame to only sell American-made products.

What types of products does The Wellness Company sell?

While Melaleuca is best known for their home cleaning supplies, they manufacture and sell over 400 products. Their product line ranges from personal care items to home care products, laundry detergents, wellness products, food products, nutritional supplements and more. They claim all of their products use high-quality natural ingredients for total wellness (more on this later…)

How do they work?

Melaleuca is an online store. It doesn’t have any retail stores other than its website. They don’t advertise or pay for marketing at all. Instead, they rely on “word-of-mouth” referrals. Whenever a customer shops at Melaleuca, a percentage of their purchase is paid as a commission to whoever referred them. 

Is Melaleuca / The Wellness Company a MLM?

Yes, although they vehemently claim they are not. They call it consumer direct marketing. The business rewards its members for new consumer product purchases.  

Whoever refers you when you sign up makes a commission every time you buy something, and you are expected to buy something every single month. If you don’t hit your monthly purchase quote they send you a random box of whatever they choose. 

The person who referred you also wants you to refer friends and gets a commission when you do so (as would you). This is how they are a multi-level marketing company. They have huge reward trips, seminars, awards, and bonus levels as you sign more and more people up beneath you. They can claim they aren’t an MLM all day long, but they very clearly are. 

They call each other team members and marketing executives and you move up levels based on how much you sell. You start as a product advocate, then move up to leadership status. director, senior director, executive director, national director… etc. If this doesn’t scream MLM I don’t know what does. I’m an affiliate for Amazon and other brands and they never refer to me as a director. They also don’t share their annual income statistics to incentivize affiliates to move up the ranks. The below image is direct from the Melaleuca website. 

My experience with The Wellness Box

My friend would post about Melaleuca almost daily and she made it sound amazing! I told her that I was looking for clean, effective products that I felt safe using and could feel comfortable recommending to my audience. She was excited to sign me up underneath her because I have a large online platform of like-minded people. She probably saw dollar signs when I mentioned I was interested. I hate to say that because we are (were) friends, but she spent an hour giving me a full-on computer presentation before I was able to sign up on the site. I’m not sure if every rep does this for their customers or if she just did that for me. 

She also set me up for another call with her rep (the person above her). They told me all about the amazing trip they were all going on together with the company because they did so well last year. They also tried to explain over and over to me that it isn’t an MLM. Instead, they kept sharing their success stories, how much money they were making, and all of their business partner stories as well. They showed me spreadsheets and income reports and were trying to get me excited about my income potential. 

One thing I thought was very weird is they told me I could not call the company Melaleuca when I mentioned it online. I can only call it the Wellness Company or the Wellness Box… shady, right?

After my calls with them, I scoured the internet and could barely find anything but positive reviews about Melaleuca, The Wellness Company, or The Wellness Box… I searched for everything. I review products for a living and this is rare, especially for a business of this size. 

What I did find was an A+ review on Better Business Bureau. But if you look closer you’ll see that they have an average of 2.88 star ratings. I don’t know many people who leave positive reviews on BBB Business profiles and my mind instantly went to thinking it’s the reps leaving these. It feels like a cult. The majority of the negative Melaleuca reviews were about people being unable to cancel and who kept getting billed for months after they quit. But not many mentions of the products and their ingredients. I had some doubts but I decided to give it a try. If anything, it would make for a good review.

I really only signed up because I wanted to try their cleaning products. They had a very high average rating. I placed my first order for their entire cleaning starter pack. I bought EVERYTHING. They had reasonable prices and I got free shipping. Another strange thing I learned on my call- your rep can see everything you order AND if you don’t place an order they contact you to make sure you do… weird, right?

How are the Wellness Box’s products?

When the products arrived (shipping is very fast!) they were all concentrations so I spent an hour mixing them with water in their bottles. 2 of the bottles wouldn’t spray. I contacted Melaleuca customer service and they shipped new ones immediately. I liked the customer service department. 

The “safer” products mostly smelled amazing and I was shocked that they didn’t have toxic fragrances. The fragrance lasts forever when you use the items. They definitely didn’t smell natural.  

I found most of the items to be great products, except the dishwasher pods- those are awful. But everything else has been good. I’m not the pickiest cleaning product user, though. 

What else did I purchase?

Here’s where I struggled. When the next month came around to place my next order I was at a loss. I didn’t like that I had to make monthly purchases. And you are forced into auto-ship monthly orders. If you don’t meet their 35-point minimum amount of products (which equals about $80-$130 a month) they will auto-ship you a random selection of products to maintain your membership. 

While yes, they do have a huge portfolio of products, I didn’t want anything else on their site. After looking at so many items and was underwhelmed. I was turned off that they sold products like deodorant with aluminum and toothpaste with fluoride. What type of non-toxic company would sell products like that? A lot of their food has ingredients I don’t eat and their makeup had bad reviews on EWG and Yuka. I decided to cancel my membership. 

Is The Wellness Box easy to cancel?

Cancellation was pretty easy for me but I felt awful telling my friend/ rep. I can imagine other people sticking with it just to not ruffle any feathers. They continued to email me for a long time trying to get me to come back but eventually, they stopped. 

The truth about The Wellness Box’s ingredients

Last night, after using the products for 9 months (yes, the same first order!!) I saw a very interesting Instagram reel by an environmental toxins attorney turned clean living coach. She said she couldn’t find their ingredients anywhere on their website. They don’t tell you what’s in their cleaning supplies! 

Here is the link to her post if you want to see for yourself.

She asked her followers who were customers to send photos of their bottles and saw they didn’t have ingredients listed either!  

She looked at their personal care products items and found a lot of negative ingredients as well. Here is her caption:

🌿Melaleuca Company Toxic Ingredient 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄⁣
⁣
❌ 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵. ⁣
⁣
There isn’t enough room here to list everything I found, so I stuck with the ingredients that are heavily used throughout their offerings.

🚩 Any company willfully hiding its ingredients is hiding something.
⁣
𝗛𝗼𝘄𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿, 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘂𝗰𝗮 / The Wellness Company’s 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 👇🏻⁣
⁣
⁣
❌ 𝗘𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘅𝘆𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 – These are ingredients made with ethylene oxide that leave behind 1,4 Dioxane and Ethylene Oxide, which are both carcinogens. (Ex. PEGs, Polysorbates, anything ending in -eth, like Laureth-7, Sodium Laureth Sulfate or Ceteareth – 6)⁣
⁣
❌ 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 – They use a lot of undisclosed fragrance. There are over 3800 ingredients that can be hidden in fragrance. ⁣
⁣
❌ 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲 – TEA is made by reacting ethylene oxide, which is derived from petroleum, with ammonia. I consider this a toxin that should always be avoided, is a known skin sensitizer that can cause eczema and contact dermatitis and with long term use, it’s a respiratory irritant.⁣
⁣
❌ 𝗣𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘅𝘆𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗼𝗹 – I consider Phenoxylethanol a “middle of the road” preservative. I avoid Phenoxyethanol because it is made by the reaction of corrosive phenol with carcinogen ethylene oxide.⁣

❌ 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝘇 & 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗵𝘆𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝘇𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗻𝗲 are their “biodegradable preservatives,” and are worse than Phenoxyethanol.
⁣
❌ 𝗣𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘂𝗺 𝗗𝘆𝗲𝘀 / 𝗟𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗗𝘆𝗲𝘀 – These come with heavy metal and PAH contamination concerns. ⁣
⁣
❌ 𝗙𝗹𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝘀 (𝗔𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗮) – They don’t disclose what these flavors or aromas are made with.⁣
⁣
❌ 𝗔𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗺 found in antiperspirants.⁣

She said they aren’t even trying to be clean. They’re using a lot of conventional toxins. YIKES!!!

I posted about it on my Instagram and my followers told me to check out this other account that does deep dives on many brands’ ingredients. I was shocked by what I learned about The Wellness Box! 

Are their products really non toxic?

Overall, I’m very disappointed with my experience. They are an obvious MLM company but they still deny that to the public. Whenever you see anyone post negative reviews you see tons of comments where people say how much they love them and are trying to debunk the negative review. To me, this screams MLM! These are likely sales reps that are making a profit. 

Are The Wellness Box Made In The USA?

I am shocked by what I learned about Melaleuca. What felt like it could be a good thing to save me time on researching ingredients and a great opportunity to share amazing products with my audience, turned into hours of me researching the truth about this company. It’s disappointing they are just another greenwashed wellness brand and they are most definitely a pyramid scheme. I’m a little bit sad that this company has turned out to be such a scam but I’m happy I have the platform to spread the word before more people fall for it. I hope more people wake up to how shady Melaleuca / The Wellness Company is. It seems like their whole business plan is to trick potential customers into thinking they sell the best products that are super high quality. They have a long history of misleading clients by claiming they have superior wellness products, made in the USA. In reality they are just another privately held company that claims to have unique products that will provide you with superior health. Yes, they have an innovative business model- they don’t “pay for marketing” but instead they pay Melaleuca customers to convince others to buy and sell common household products. It’s definitely an innovative approach. It’s also disappointing. 

Do I think their products are the most toxic on the market? No, not necessarily. They don’t have chlorine bleach and they exclude a few other toxic ingredients but I wouldn’t recommend them as family-friendly products. 

If you want even further proof they are a MLM, this YouTuber has an amazing video breakdown where she even has a call with some of the reps:

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xx,

Lauren