Pure Haven Essentials: Scam or trusted beauty brand? [Review]

pure-havenPure Haven Essentials, formerly Ava Anderson, is a network marketing company that sells beauty and skincare products.

If there’s one kind of company that knows how to rebrand, it’s a failed MLM after a career-ending scandal breaks out.

In this industry, it’s the oldest (and most obvious) trick in the PR book. But a little scandal never hurt anyone, right?

Ava Anderson has bounced right back from a run-in with the USDA in the form of a brand, shiny new MLM: Pure Haven Essentials.

But since the rebrand, there’s been little to no news about how the company is fairing. Have they stabilized? We not sure. Here’s what we do know…

FAQ

1. What does Pure Haven Essentials sell? Pure Haven has adopted the tagline, “Natural. Fresh. Trusted,” for their beauty products. Their product lines include skin care, makeup, body care, baby, home, and pets.

2. What are Pure Haven Essentials’ most popular products? Some of Pure Haven’s most popular products are their essential oils, which sell for around $10 per 0.2 fluid ounce, and their boo boo stick, a balm made of neem, lavender, rose hip, and tea tree oils.

3. How much does it cost to join Pure Haven Essentials? You can join Pure Haven by purchasing their startup kit for $99. For the first three months, you’ll get your back office for free. After that, it costs $5 a month.

4. Is Pure Haven Essentials a scam? We’re not fond of MLMs that ask you to sign on the dotted line before giving you any information about being a representative. Sadly, Pure Haven is one of those. Disclosure questions aside, they do sell beauty products. Whether they live up to their claims to be toxin-free, we can’t be sure. There’s not much information on their website, and there’s no proof that the products meet Pure Haven’s lofty claims. (At least their “organic” rating seems to be legit now.)

5. What is Pure Haven Essentials’ BBB rating? The parent company, Global Ventures, has an A+ rating.

6. How long has Pure Haven Essentials been in business? Since 2016

7. What is Pure Haven Essentials’ revenue? There are no numbers online related to Pure Haven. That said, Pure Haven’s parent company, Global Ventures, owns Pure Haven plus two other direct sales companies, Xyngular and Symmetry Global. Global Ventures’ revenue was $92.1 million in 2016. They haven’t released financial information since then.

8. How many Pure Haven Essentials distributors are there? As of 2016, they have 50,000 distributors.

9. What lawsuits have been filed? In December 2015, Pure Haven’s former identity, Ava Anderson, was cited by the USDA for making false claims about its products being organic. Their rebrand was supposed to be a fresh new start, but immediately after adopting a new name, they were cited again for labeling and ingredient issues.  They also had to pull its bug spray over an EPA compliance issue. [1]

10. Comparable companies: Melaleuca, Young Living, Purium

So should you join up with Pure Haven?

Look, I got nothing but love for these guys, but there’s better options out there to earn passive income and have free time.

Click here for my #1 recommendation

Either way, here’s the full review on Pure Haven Essentials.

Overview

Pure Haven Essentials is a rebranding of Ava Anderson, which shut down after multiple USDA investigations into the company that found toxic chemicals in their products…despite their slogan being “quality products without harmful chemicals.”

Not only that, but they had been marketing their essential oils as “organic” in violation of USDA rules and regulations. [2]

Well, the company wasted no time. They shut down on January 26th, 2016, and re-launched on February 12th ( 3 weeks later) as Pure Haven Essentials. [3]

Now they’re already back at claiming to be USDA Organic Certified. Luckily, this time it appears to be legit, and they already passed a pretty rigorous audit done by Oregon Tilth Certified Organic. [4]

According to their website, their application to be part of the Direct Selling Association is still pending. But they are listed on the DSA here. Is that an oversight? If so, what other information isn’t being reported accurately?

Since re-launching they appear to have replaced their leadership more than once. Joe Ochoa was announced as their latest CEO back in May of 2016. Before that, he co-founded and ran South Hill Designs, a $30 million direct sales company, for nearly 4 years. [5]

Ochoa’s LinkedIn profile says he was only their interim CEO through August 2016. He’s no longer with Pure Haven, and there’s no information online about who the new CEO is.

In fact, there are no updates on the company since 2016—either in the blog, in press releases, or on industry news sites.

So it looks like the company is still in a major transition period and probably won’t be stable for a while. Ochoa did say that Pure Haven Essentials is “in distress due to the sudden departure of family ownership.”[6]

How much does Pure Haven Essentials cost?

It costs $99 to join and purchase the Pure Havens Essentials Business Kit, which includes a handful of products that can be sold.

Additionally, you need to do at least $300 PV per month to remain active.

Products

Their products have the same focus on natural, safe ingredients that Ava Anderson did, except hopefully with more honesty added into the mix. Their slogan now is “safe. effective. trustworthy.”

The products fall into the following categories:

  • Skin Essentials
  • Body Essentials
  • Hair Essentials
  • Baby Essentials
  • Kid’s Essentials
  • Home Essentials
  • Men’s Essentials
  • Face Essentials
  • Oil Essentials
  • Spay Essentials

According to a statement the company made during the rebranding, all of their products are now made in-house at their manufacturing facility in Warren, RI.

The release also promises that the products use only the finest ingredients and absolutely no harmful chemicals (see: Arbonne, Nu Skin, or Modere). Furthermore, all products will include a full ingredients list.

The price points aren’t prohibitively expensive, but they’re certainly not cheap. An exfoliator will run you $22.95, a set of 3 bar soaps costs $21.95, and a glass cleaner costs $19.95. Definitely more than a $4 bottle of Windex, but if they really are organic and non-toxic, the extra money might be worth it for some.

Benefits

According to Pure Haven Essentials, none of their products contain harmful ingredients. Using non-toxic products means a healthier lifestyle in general.

Their skincare products, specifically, are designed to keep your skin clean and moisturized in a sustainable, healthy way.

Side Effects

There are no known side effects associated with this company’s product, however past products have been identified as containing toxic ingredients.

Compensation Plan

There are four ways to make money repping Pure Haven Essentials:

  1. Commissions and Bonuses on Personal sales
  2. Downline Commissions
  3. Executive Promotion Advance Bonuses
  4. Executive Career Path and Compensation

Retail Commissions are between 30% and 50%, based on the following rubric…

  • Under $1,000 in monthly sales: 30% commissions
  • $1,000-$2,000 in monthly sales: 35% commissions
  • $2,000-$3,000 in monthly sales: 40% commissions
  • $3,000-$4,000 in monthly sales: 45% commissions
  • Over $4,000 in monthly sales: 50% commissions

A 50% commission rate on personal sales is pretty good, but you deserve more than a network marketing salary if you can manage to squeeze $4,000 a month out of your family and friends for cleaning products and bath soap.

Downline Commissions start out at 5% from the sales of your Level 1 recruits (direct recruits) and go up from there as you move up in rank.

  • Star Level Consultants (at least $300 PV/month) get 5% on their Level 1.
  • Double Star Level Consultants ($600 PV/month and $2,000 GV/month) get 7% on their Level 1 and 3% on their Level 2.
  • Triple Star Level Consultants ($800 PV/month and $4,000 GV/month) get 7% on their Level 1, 5% on Level 2, and 3% on Level 3.
  • Executive Consultants ($1,000 PV/month and $8,000 GV/month) get 7% on their Level 1, 5% on Level 2, 5% on Level 3, and 2% on all other levels to INFINITY.

Executive Promotion Advance Bonuses get you $500 when you hit Executive rank and another $500 each time someone in your downline hits Executive rank.

Executive Career Path and Compensation are essential generational bonuses that get you additional commission on your executive generations that increase as you move up in the executive rankings (Bronze Executive, Silver Executive, etc all the way to Diamond Executive).

Recap

Overall, they’ve got a pretty legit compensation plan. Not only is it transparent and fairly simple, but it clearly focuses some attention on personal product sales and not just recruitment.

The fact that even the highest rankings have to keep selling $1,000+ in product a month means that this MLM is less scammy than most.

Run-ins with the USDA in the past regarding toxic ingredients are pretty alarming, though. Hopefully they’ve got that taken care of completely, but it’s still a little early to say.

But you’ve GOT to build up a HUGE downline to do well in any MLM (see the top-ranked ones here), and that’s hard enough to do at very well-established companies with perfect records.

Trying to do it at a company with a huge red mark on their record would be nearly impossible.

Look, I’ve been involved with network marketing for over ten years so I know what to look for when you consider a new opportunity.

After reviewing 200+ business opportunities and systems out there, here is the one I would recommend:

Click here for my #1 recommendation

Meet the Author

JP

JP teaches network marketers how to build a real business. Far from a hater, he still LOLs at 3-way calls and building "downlines". If you like Monday morning conversations with your kids by the pool, you might like this.

6 comments… add one
  • KATHY YOUNG May 14, 2017, 1:50 am

    UPDATE: PUREhaven Essentials, since September 2016, has been awarded certification as a USDA National Organic Program certified organic manufacturing facility by Oregon Tilth Certified Organic. There products are non-toxic, and work great. I know, because I use them everyday. They have helped me replace all my once toxic products and I have NEVER looked back! 🙂

    • Jeremy Page Jun 14, 2017, 7:37 pm

      Ok, thank you Kathy

  • Amy Dec 5, 2017, 9:37 pm

    You only need to sell $500 every six months to remain active. Not $300/month.

    • JP Dec 20, 2017, 7:12 am

      Thanks for the update. MLM comp plans are consistently being updated and its good to get new information.

      • Laura Cherington Mar 8, 2018, 10:13 am

        It’s not new….been the case since I signed up in 2012.

    • Laura Cherington Mar 8, 2018, 10:13 am

      was gonna say the same…I have been a consultant for over 5 years!

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