There's a patch for that: LifeWave moves into New Zealand
Bronwyn Rideout - 11th November 2024
I’ve been watching LifeWave for a while. Along with the Olive Tree People, LightWave has been one of the MLMs many ex-consultants of Monat, a hair and skincare MLM, have been joining since several key leaders and consultants were expunged from that company a few months back. It’s hard to beat talking Olive Trees when it comes to MLM concepts, but this one really takes the cake.
Katrina’s article above will have explained the concept and the science behind it. I will go through some of the claims and the MLM structure used to push the supposedly life-changing product to the masses. And boy, some of those claims are big. The rep I spoke to at the Go Green Expo claimed that once she started using the patches, her achalasia (a condition that causes trouble swallowing) improved so rapidly that she was able to eat without trouble almost immediately, and cancelled a surgery that was about to happen just a day or two later. As far as the extraordinary evidence needed to back up the extraordinary claim like this one, her story didn’t cut the mustard and was especially concerning. While not all surgeries are essential, and misdiagnosis is a possibility, it is troublesome whenever I hear someone forgo an intervention in favour of a therapy that is unproven, untested, and unbelievable.
If this ‘nanotechnology’ was truly so effective, why does LifeWave need to use direct selling? Also, anything that claims to be a cure-all, or close thereto, should be treated with suspicion. With all the conditions, injuries, and illnesses these patches can supposedly treat, we should question why there are no reports of side effects and adverse drug reactions.
Website | AUS/NZ website | No Wikipedia Page | Facebook (Corporate)
Country of Origin: United States, Corporate office in San Diego, California
Year Founded: August 2004, but development started in 2002.
Founded by: David Schmidt. According to his LinkedIn profile and other bios, Schmidt went to Pace University and studied Management Information Science and Biology. It is unreported if he has any postgraduate qualifications, or if he even received an undergraduate degree or certificate, as the language tends to be vague, i.e. “…received formal education…” or “…following his undergraduate work…”. His crunchbase bio presents him as an inventor who admires Thomas Edison with a knack for the “novel”: a bladeless turbine generator, techniques for synthesising oxygen and hydrogen, and work on a combustion rocket engine.
Year MLM established in New Zealand: Unclear. It is not listed as a member of the Direct Selling Association of New Zealand. It has certainly had distributors in Australia as early as 2014. While there are distributors in New Zealand, possibly as early as 2019, the product is shipped from Australia and not all LifeWave products are available in Australasia. No company named LifeWave is on the NZ companies register. However, a company called Lifewave Inc. has been registered in Australia since 2010, and is the same name that registered the corporate trademarks of the MLM in that country. Interestingly, this company requested that their home acupuncture unit be removed from the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods in June 2024.
Generally sells: Non-transdermal patches constructed from materials like amino acids and sugars.
The Pitch: The original 2004 claim was that these patent pending organic structures were programmed with biological messages the body could understand. LifeWave could program any message into the patch (burn fat, build muscle, go to sleep), giving it pretty broad applications.
“Cult” products: Currently, LifeWave X39 patches. Each sleeve contains about 30 patches, and you apply one to your body in the morning for up to 12 hours. Other websites claim that you can wear more than one, and that 12 hours on / 12 hours off helps with repair and rejuvenation. So, technically you get 1 patch/day per sleeve, but it is possible for someone to fall under the impression that they may need to buy double or triple that amount for treatment.
The patches are applied to acupressure points at the top of the spine, or on the pelvic area. For a little extra oomph to the acupressure, a plastic bead is included in the packaging, and one is meant to place the bead in the middle of the patch before application.
How is it meant to work?: According to the patent, the patch contains a layer of organic and inorganic molecules configured to interact with infrared light emitted by the body. Another layer of the patch is a phototherapy layer; this layer contains copper-binding peptides, and is configured to reflect a specific wavelength of light into the subject’s body, which should elevate levels of copper-binding peptides in the body.
I am not a scientist, but it would be a very good idea to confirm whether simply putting a product containing copper peptides directly onto the skin is a real mechanism contributing to skin healing, and whether it does cause an increase in the level of copper peptides in the body. Beyond, you know, the healing from using a standard bandage or wound dressing material that contains copper oxide.
Methods of selling: Online from distributors, but it is possible to buy from Amazon, WalMart, and other online Health and Wellness companies. It isn’t unusual for MLMs to double-dip in network marketing and traditional sales, particularly if they sell cosmetics. Still, it’s not a model that is supportive or demonstrates confidence in the contractor side of their business.
Name for workforce: Nothing silly; they’re simply brand partners. As they move up the ranks, they then get titles like manager, director, senior director, executive director, presidential director, and senior presidential director.
Is there a buy-in?: Yes.
There are multiple options. The cheapest is $25 USD ($41.67 NZD), up to premium enrollment at $1,750 USD ($2,916.98 NZD). The pricier packages give an interesting bonus to the brand partner’s personal volume (PV) for the first month, and up to two months with premium enrollment. Readers who have been following these segments for a while, or who are MLM aficionados, will remember PV is a value given to a proportion of the sales made by individual MLM consultants. PV is part of the equation that determines whether they can advance or maintain their rank in an MLM and qualify for any bonuses like cash, trips, or contributions to leasing a particular car. This is a considerable hook in the MLM world, and for anyone who has an established downline, it is definitely an advantage to maintain top-dog status for a couple of months at least.
After the enrollment fee, as best as I can tell, incoming brand partners then choose which products and sales tools they want for their monthly subscription. The cheapest products are $69.95 USD/month, while the X39 patches are $ 99.95 USD/month. As for the sales tools, they are significantly cheaper, with instruction booklets going for $3.50 USD each.
It is possible to proceed through enrollment without setting up a monthly subscription order immediately, but whether that would be a tenable situation in the long term is uncertain.
Price Guide: If you were to purchase the X39 patches as a one-off, that would set you back $149.95 USD, not including freight from Australia. If you subscribe, then it is $99.95 USD/month. Most other products are $79.95 USD or $69.95 USD/month, but there is a Y-Age System kit that contains three different products that costs $209.85 USD or $149.85 USD/month. This kit can go a little further than one month; you wear any two patches at once, and you do not need to use the products daily, as you would with the X39.
Compensation Plan?: Yes.
Is there commission?: Yes.
As with any MLM, there are multiple ways to make a profit. LifeWave brand partners can purchase products at wholesale prices (i.e. X39 at wholesale is $99.95) and then sell for retail ($149.95) to the customers, and retain the $50 profit, OR have a website to sell the product at retail prices, and the company will transfer the $50. Either way, the brand partner will get $50 and 77PV, which will be credited towards maintaining their rank. Additional commission is earned by enrolling or upgrading people to the top three of the four enrollment kits, which are called core, advanced, and premium.
Tough luck if you bought the cheapest package.
Binary commissions complicate the commission/compensation structure. To become an active brand partner, you need to sell a minimum of 55PV in 31 days. This is easy peasy as you can just sell one pack of X39, which is 77PV. LifeWave discourages stockpiling, aka inventory loading, but states that they require brand partners to sell, consume, or use for business building, about 70% of their stock before reordering.
However, to qualify to earn a commission, you need to recruit at least two brand partners under you, aka legs. If you have multiple recruits, you can place them in available positions under other brand partners in your downline. Regardless, one leg must have 660BV (business volume) - the accumulated personal volume of that leg’s downline plus their preferred customers; this is called the strong or power leg. The weaker leg, or confusingly called the profit leg, should have 330BV. Which leg is the strong leg and which is the weak one can change weekly. You can earn $50 each time your legs meet, or cycle, that 660BV:330BV split. If you are a simple commission-qualified brand partner, you can “cycle” twice per week and earn a maximum of $100/week from your downline, as long as they retain their own brand partner status.
Of course, the higher up the pyramid you climb, the more times you can cycle per week. Within the higher ranks, any leftover volume that isn’t used to fulfil a cycle by the end of the week is carried over to the following week. Any volume that remains after 52 weeks is considered expired and no longer carried over. While this seems advantageous to those higher up the pyramid, the requirements needed to maintain one’s rank also become more complicated, as one is expected to have a specific number of high-ranking members in their downline plus a significantly high BV.
Take the requirement for the Senior Presidential Director rank. They need 200,000 in group commissionable volume each week. If their flagship product, X39, is 77PV, then 2,598 sleeves of this product need to be sold each week, or 10,392 each month.
That’s a lot of customers in a single downline.
Income Disclosure Statement?: None. Which is problematic. The company has been around for 20 years, and has sold through an MLM model since 2021. While we can presume that the income stats are as dire as other MLMs, evidence is still nice to have.
Has a reputation for…: While the X39 patches are promoted as capable of returning skin to a more youthful appearance, brand partners are saying it can do so much more. It is not unusual for social media posts to attribute the normal healing process of skin injuries to the patch.
Should you be worried?: Yes. Even if the company barely skirts around efficacy claims, the distributors are not demonstrating similar restraint. If you have a family member or friend who is purchasing this product or being lured into the business opportunity, they are at risk of forgoing real medical attention and follow-up care in favour of this non-invasive patch.
