MAKE HIM BARK 101

Happy July! June was quieter here on my personal Substack. Been biting off more than I can chew these days with Unwell and other projects, but I’m almost caught up? I hope? It’s all been a blast, albeit at the temporary expense of weekly journals. I’ll try to make sure they don’t slip into bi-weekly territory longterm because tbh my heart is in the freewheeling spirit of Broke But Moisturized. What can I say? I love doing what I want.

TODAY ABOVE THE PAYWALL I give you a fragrance layering trio that I’m calling MAKE HIM BARK 101. Yum! Plus thoughts on turning 35 in exactly one week, etc.

The Sean Baker Effect is when normal people can’t freely express their fascination with sex work because Hollywood creeps build empires on fantasy and exploitation. I, however, will not be silenced. Strippers, cam girls, escorts, you name it, I want to know what’s on their getting ready playlist and where they shop and what they eat for breakfast at 3 PM and their thoughts on contemporary art, class consciousness, plastic surgery, red light therapy, and luxury dog breeds. Put me in the cuck chair in the VIP room with a notepad and let me cook!

I’m reading this piece in The New Yorker about OnlyFans creators. I’m entertained by the banal stuff people pay to watch. On the elevator with my 6’something work bestie, I encourage her to start an OnlyFans to meet the growing needs of the giantess fetish community. Imagine a man begging you to SHRINK HIM and PUT HIM IN YOUR BRA. Roald Dahl ass kink.

We get to talking and of course, she would never do that and I mention my brief stint getting Venmoed to call a guy a pathetic loser and we’re cracking up, surrounded, now, by other colleagues on their way to lunch. This one VP I see all the time is red, smiling tightly, trying not to laugh or acknowledge that he heard me say “pay pig.” I forget his name. He looks very clean. Work bestie breaks the ice with him like, “Hey, how are you!? Any fun plans for the fourth?”

If you’re gonna choose a life of walkable shoes and a 30-year mortgage, you should at least make it fun.

A few minutes early to my five o’clock nail appointment. The lights are on in the Greek cafe and there are people inside sipping iced coffees and I think, and for the lady, a little fuckass matcha? Naturally I walk in and they all start giggling because they’re closed and this is a staff meeting. Cute young girl is extra apologetic, squeaks out, “I love your dress!” as I waddle out the door like “THANK YOU! :-D” The plot moves forward another inch.

All the nail techs greet me by name and ask how I’m feeling. I’m feeling like I’ve endured the world’s worst French manicure for two weeks. You know it’s ghastly when your COWORKERS are honest with you. “Yeaaaah, it’s bad,” they agreed over salads and cans of Diet Dr. Pepper.

But it’s not that deep, so I say that I’m feeling good, baby’s kicking. Ice in my veins. Today is about redemption. Today I am armed with a Pinterest photo of how a French manicure should look, and by the grace of God, Miss Thi delivers. Soft square, OPI “Put it in Neutral” base, thin white line. $20 tip on a $55 bill.

My satisfaction wanes as I get home and spend more time with my hands. My cuticles look neglected. They’re making my nail beds appear shorter and stubbier. Pinterest nails have long, elegant nail beds. Pinterest nails don’t clack against the keyboard of shame all day; they delicately organize a closet full of cashmere and silk in between tanning sessions by the pool.

Coating my cuticles in a lemony salve, I begin to wonder if this is as good as it gets for a tiny-handed woman with no swimming pool. More time wasted on the minute aesthetic details of the body.

Groomed my poodle to the full length of Kid A. Blow dried his hair with the Kashmira Professional Blowout Brush on low heat. We went for a walk around town with the baby and saw our first gold finch of the year and a house with a TAYLOR SWIFT 2024 TAKE AMERICA BACK banner. There are upwards of nine million lead service lines delivering water to American homes, toxins lodged in our organs indefinitely making our hair fall out giving us seizures sapping our vitality with every chemotherapy appointment, kids held back from second grade for communicating with their fists and spelling their names wrong, whole communities straight decimated… and Taylor Swift is still a billionaire.

AND YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF

WELL… HOW DID I GET HERE?

This evening I went to Trader Joe’s for some frozen bullshit food: mandarin orange chicken, vegetable fried rice, pork soup dumplings, chipwiches. My body, the fluctuating compromise. We had caprese salad and hotdogs and burgers on the grill for dinner, hung out in the yard at golden hour while I played this Burning Manesque playlist. I keep getting gallbladder attacks, though, so I basically can’t eat any of what I just mentioned if I’d like to participate in my life from somewhere other than bed with a heating pad. I love my pregnancy prison!

After putting Bianca down, it was a marathon of self-care. Pre-wash hair oil treatment, shampoo, hair mask, exfoliate, shave everything, body wash, hair oil and up in a microfiber twist, body butter, body oil, vaseline on elbows, lips, and feet and immediately slide feet into wool socks for occlusion, fragrance oil roller, perfume, facial skincare (rose water spray, serum, Weleda skin food), teeth, blow dry hair for a few minutes. Feel so fucking good. Feel like in this state, I could sleep for a month and wake up glowy and capable of managing my life.

Here’s something that makes me feel like I don’t have my shit together: I’ve had the same Invisalign buttons on my teeth for like, three years, just using the same two trays to maintain some semblance of alignment, and the trays finally broke. I finally have to admit that I failed at Invisalign TWICE and probably shouldn’t try it a third time, especially considering I originally paid pennies for it while managing social media for a dental practice. I simply refuse to pay $5000 to mess this up again. What sucks is that it isn’t just cosmetic; I have an uncomfortable crossbite that gives me headaches. Invisalign helped so much with this and I still couldn’t motivate myself to do it properly… twice! And now I’ll lose the progress I did make because the trays broke!

I turn 35 in 10 days. I am kind of excited. Milestones are cute, even when I haven’t been crazy about my birthday in recent years. Funny how the pendulum swings. I used to be that girl who had a “birthday month” of debauchery that no one could clock me on because IT’S MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!!! Like calling “fives” on your seat at a party, certain proclamations form the social code of youth and must be honored at all costs.

“Unc” is a positive signifier in my book. A hard-earned title. At my big age, I am undeniably more “unc” than “girlie.” But I try to live my life in a way that allows me to slither between the two, crossing the glass partition that divides I.AM.GIA and Fisher-Price. I think the only healthy way to engage with youth culture at 35 is from a place of charitable curiosity that is totally devoid of yearning. If you constantly bemoan the ways of the zoomer, it’s only because you haven’t opened your eyes to everything stacked against them which, if you have a heart, mostly calls for grace. (They’re also very smart and funny!) If you’re wistful about getting older, if you can’t see it as a gift or nothing at all—I’m inclined toward the latter—you’ll find yourself jealous of their poreless skin, their metabolisms, the ways they succeed on internet clout alone when you’ve worked tirelessly for crumbs of recognition. It’s just not worth it. You kinda just have to go be 35 and like what you like and love people and act in ways that feel congruent with your values. That’s my spiel. You shall address me as Uncle Girlie from here on out.

Now my gift for you guys… you girlies. It’s a fragrance combo that I’m calling MAKE HIM BARK 101: an ethereal, high-low layering of three products that makes you smell edible, but in a way that’s better suited to a crochet bikini cover-up than a chunky sweater. (NOTE: I know coconut oil is comedogenic. If you’re prone to body acne, swap the moisturizer for your favorite unscented formula, or something coconut-scented that doesn’t use coconut oil as the base. Of course, it won’t be the same, but you might get him to yip, or maybe even sit for a treat!)

• First, I recommend showering with a neutral soap or body wash to avoid additional fragrance notes. I use Dove Deep Moisture body wash for a light, clean scent.

• Post-shower, moisturize with Trader Joe’s Coconut Body Butter. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this product is criminally underrated, at least online. I’m no stranger to ShowerTok (embarrassing), and I’ve never once seen it mentioned—probably because TJ’s doesn’t need a robust influencer marketing program to move units, and everything on social media is an ad. It smells delicious, is really hydrating, and costs $6. Possibly a subconscious choice because I know it’s affordable, but I use *big* scoops of this stuff whenever I reach for it, so apply liberally if you can!

• Next, apply Kuumba Made Vanilla Bean fragrance oil to pulse points. You can find Kuumba Made perfume rollers at Whole Foods, Sprouts, on Amazon, etc. I truly believe this is one of the most natural, addictive vanillas on the market. And it’s like $13.

• Lastly, and this is where our wallets shudder, a couple spritzes of Blanche Bête by Liquides Imaginaires. I’ve spoken at length about this fragrance, but its appeal in my (modest) collection only intensifies with time. What I love about Blanche Bête is that nobody really knows what it is. I mean, everyone thinks their description is gospel, but at the heart of each review is the insecurity of confronting something unknowable. Is she milk? Is she the raw nectar from a mysterious white flower that only grows in Transylvania? Is she just fucking coconut? Whatever she is, she completes the trifecta with a light spritz to the neck and wrists. (She might just be fucking coconut after all.)

I’ve been sitting on this for a while because I wanted to test the consistency of my husband’s reaction. And every time, he floats to me like pie on a windowsill. He’s not even huge on fragrance, so what does that tell you?