Buckle up because this is a long one but the tea is hot so it’s worth the read if you want to know all the juicy details.
I did break this up with bold headers to make it easier to navigate.
Intro
Aqua mermaid is a thief and a scammer. I try to stay out of drama so the fact that I am taking the time to officially call her out tells you just how big a deal this really is. I do not call people such harsh names often and I don’t take this lightly. Do not watch her videos! Every view earns her money. She is getting paid to put lives in danger by spreading bad info and disregarding tail safety. She also gets paid to undercut the industry so do not hire her for anything!
Who is Aqua Mermaid?
Aqua Mermaid is a mermaid company run by a woman named Marielle in Canada. This company gained a large following on YouTube by posting informational videos about mermaid tails and being a professional mermaid. They run a few mermaid schools in Canada and in the USA and provide mermaids for birthday parties and events. There are many issues with Aquamermaid and all of these things over the past 7ish years have earned Aquamermaid the title of biggest scammer in the mermaid community.
If you have ever googled anything about mermaid tails, professional mermaids, mermaid schools, etc. aquamermaid is one of the first things to pop up. If you watch mermaid related YouTube content you have probably seen several of her videos. With a large following and what seems like a successful business you would think that aqua mermaid knows what they are talking about. Nope.
No client privacy / takes your money before a mermaid is even available or booked / sends random strangers to work for her / undercutting
How the client thinks hiring aqua mermaid works:
1.) email them your event details (location, date, time)
2.) pay them
3.) have a mermaid that is an employee of aquamermaid show up at your event.
How it actually works:
1.) send aquamermaid your event details
2.) aquamermaid takes your $300 an hour for the party.
3.) aquamermaid goes on facebook and Instagram and finds a random stranger in the area of your event who has a mermaid tail
4.) aquamermaid emails this random stranger your FULL HOME ADDRESS with the date and time of your event and the number of children that will be there. She even includes the ages of those children!!!!
5.) aquamermaid finds a random (sometimes unqualified and untrained) mermaid and pays them $100-$150 per hour
6.) aquamermaid keeps the other $150-$200 per hour that she charged the client without the performer knowing what happened and how they were taken advantage of.
Aquamermaid is in Canada and these events that she is booking are in the USA. She is booking events in a country that she can’t legally work in and making someone else do the work that she gets paid for.
Professional mermaids are territorial. Each mermaid sets up their own zone in which they work and do parties and events. If there are too many mermaids in an area there is competition and things get ugly. Aqua mermaid comes in to someone else’s already established territory and steals an event from them. That is undercutting. Stealing work from individuals that aren’t even in your country and then sending under qualified individuals to do that event is just wrong.
How do I know the event request is from aquamermaid and how do I respond?
If you have a mermaid tail chances are aqua mermaid will try to contact you. She preys on people who are new to the community so they don’t know her tricks and they don’t know they are being taken advantage of. If you receive an email from aqua mermaid or from a backup fake account with the same text as the photo below
DO NOT WORK FOR HER! Get creative with your response. Tell her how horrible what she does really is and tell her that no one is going to put up with it anymore.
AquaMermaid doesn’t care about safety.
In order to swim in a mermaid tail safely you need:
-a proper monofin
-the training and swim skills necessary to properly swim in a tail
-the knowledge of what to do in the event of an emergency and how to self rescue.
Aqua mermaid sends people with no training to teach mermaid lessons for children.
You don’t need to be a certified lifeguard or a swim coach. You don’t even need a proper or safely made tail. If you are 16 or older, have any mermaid tail, and are willing to work for her you can teach children how to swim in tails. This seems absolutely absurd to me especially with all the expensive training I went through to safely teach mermaid lessons. This post she made about having less requirements than other mermaid companies is NOT a flex!
She has an online course for mermaid swim instructors. You cannot earn a lifesaving certification through a screen. You need hands on training and practice for things like lifeguarding where you are expected to know how to save a life. She charges $486 for this class!!!
If you pay for mermaid lessons you are under the impression that you are getting a properly trained coach who uses safely made equipment and cares about your child’s safety. This is not the case with aquamermaid.
Making your own monofin is a big no-no in mermaid tail safety. Aqua mermaid has a whole YouTube video about making your own monofin. This video currently has 48,000 views.
Monofins are not toys they are sports equipment and you need a proper and safe one in your tail. Aqua mermaid considers some of them toys and compares the cheaper “toy” monofins with more expensive professional monofins in this video with 724,000 views. In this video she reviews and compares only 2 monfoins. a knockoff monofin sold on amazon, AliExpress, and wish. This fin isn’t safe. It’s like a dangerous version of a Finfun monofin. The other monofin she is comparing (the one she is calling a professional fin) is the monofin that she sells. Read the next part for more on that
The aqua mermaid monofin
She sells this fin claiming it is her own design. She found it on alibaba (the website where you buy things wholesale from factories in Asia.) she bought them all up and put her logo on them. They sell for $60 each on her website and they sell for $7.62 each (plus the $5-$10 shipping charged per fin) on alibaba.
Now that’s what a ton of other businesses do including almost everything on amazon, BUT alibaba monofins are not professional fins and are not typically recommended as a safe monofin option. There are a lot of improper and dangerous options sold there.
Aqua mermaid sells silicone tails but doesn’t make mermaid tails.
Aquamermaid posts videos about silicone mermaid tails talking about how “they” made the tails over at aquamermaid. This makes it sound like she makes these tails herself specifically for her company and under the aquamermaid brand. That’s not true.
Aquamermaid contacted a couple tailmakers (I’m sure she told them about how successful her business is and about how much money they could make / how many orders they could get if they worked with her) 2 companies signed up. Cyntault creations in Canada and Fairytales mermaid tails in Bangkok.
So you order a silicone tail from aquamermaid and pay her. she sends the order to another business to be made. Once the tail is done it is mailed to the customer who is most likely under the impression that aquamermaid made the tail. In this screenshot you can see that the total cost aquamermaid charged for this tail was way more than what the artist making the tail charges meaning aquamermaid was making a very large profit off of someone else’s hard work. (A running theme with her) now if this was agreed on by the artist and aquamermaid it would be considered a finders fee and would be fine… but the artists making the tails for her has no idea she was marking them up so much.
aquamermaid’s listing $1443 usd
this is a base price, she will charge extra for colors, designs, fins, etc.
this is the etsy shop to buy tails directly from the actual tailmaker
there was a situation where a mermaid was working for aquamermaid in exchange for a custom tail she was working for $11ish an hour to work off a $3000 tail…
Here the tailmaker says they were not aware of the amount she was marking up the tails.
It was revealed later by Fairytales Bangkok that under their contract with aquamermaid the tails they made for her customers could have no branding on them. This means the artist who makes the tail can’t put their logo or name on it. You can see in these images that tails and tops made by Cyntault creations have a logo tag on the back and these they made for aquamermaid do appear to be missing that logo so this seems true.
Here’s the logo
Here’s a tail in aquamermaid videos
Fairytales Bangkok was exposed for making tails with low quality silicones and no longer works with aqua mermaid. They were pretty much canceled when it came to light that their tails contain very dangerous and low quality homemade monofins. Also their tails are made with low quality and possibly toxic silicones so the tails just completely fall apart. (Now I would have asked what kind of silicone they use and what kind of monofins to make sure only safe and properly made tails were being made and sold representing my company but we already established that she doesn’t care about safety.)
She supports and sells stolen art
For years people in other countries have been stealing photos of handmade mermaid tails and printing the stolen images on fabric creating knockoffs. The biggest victim of this art theft is Finfolk Productions. These knockoff tails are low quality and are very dangerous. Aqua mermaid promotes the use of these tails (and other gear with stolen art printed on them). She sends performers to do mermaid events while wearing these dangerous knockoffs. She wore a rash guard with stolen Finfolk art printed on it to a mermaid convention that was sponsored by Finfolk themselves! (She has massive coconuts and zeros F’s apparently) photo below⬇️
But wait there’s more!
-aquamermaid stole tail designs and gave them to a tailmaker to make. The tailmaker thought the designer was paid for them and had no idea they were stolen.
-She tried to find a mermaid to swim in a very polluted and busy marina for $100 for an event.
-Aquamermaid will steal your photos and use them to make it look like you
work for her company.
-she plays dumb when called out
*The info in this blog was gathered from the mermaid community via groups on Facebook and mernetwork. You can read more about this situation here: https://mernetwork.com/index/showthread.php?18609-Problems-With-AquaMermaid