Beauty & Fashion

Behind the Seams: Slutty Seductress + Glamorous Grampa

Kate Sloan

March 24th, 2018. I wore this to a party my friend Suz threw to celebrate the overhaul and relaunch of her blog. The event description said, “Kinky, queer, fetish wear, glitter, and extra outfits are highly encouraged!” so I decided to get real slutty.

I bought this dress at Forever 21 in early 2016 and couldn’t believe such a mainstream store was selling such an overtly fetishistic item. However, then Bex pointed out that I may have been wearing it backwards… and, as it turned out, they were right. The corsetry is supposed to go up the back, instead of being essentially a cleavage window. But fuck that: I do what I want!

The party was a good time: we danced to ’90s pop, drank cocktails, talked about sex research, watched porn being projected on a giant screen, ate cupcakes with penises and vulvas on them, and debated the merits of various sex toys. Suz really knows how to throw a shindig!

What I’m wearing:
• Hair in braided high pigtails (the Baby Spice vibez are TOO good; I need to do this more often)
• Tight black lace-up dress – Forever 21
• Skin-tone pantyhose – probably Shoppers Drugmart (bought to wear to a wedding last year)
• Black leather Frye engineer boots
• Silver “Daddy’s” heart-shaped padlock – a gift from my love, custom-made by L’Amour-Propre, worn on a chain from a silver key necklace I got on Canal Street in 2006

April 15th, 2018. When I put this on, I looked at myself in the mirror and decided I looked like a glamorous grampa. It’s quite an aesthetic!

This is, IMO, the ideal outfit for schlepping through a foot of snow to a local café on a lazy Sunday afternoon, sipping a latte, and reading a trippy award-winning novel for a few hours, which is exactly what I did. I also journaled about the top-10 most memorable sexual experiences of my life thus far, because what else would a sex writer do on her day off?

What I’m wearing:
• Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink liquid lipstick in “Pioneer” (it stayed on admirably and didn’t even mark the mug I drank from – impressive!)
• White J. Crew men’s T-shirt – a gift from my boyfriend; he wore it under an impeccable navy suit on our second date and, the next morning, told me I could keep it, a gesture I predictably reacted to by clutching it against my nose and bursting into tears
• Berry-pink merino wool V-neck cardigan – the Gap
• Black leggings – the Gap
• Black leather Frye engineer boots
• Coach Mercer satchel in a color called “Cloud” – one of the few fancy treats I bought when I briefly had a sugar daddy last year
• Montale “Aoud Lime” perfume (obsessed – it’s like a little kick of springtime, which, on this absurdly wintry mid-April day, felt necessary)

April 24th, 2018. I wore this to perform in the Bed Post variety show at the Super Wonder Gallery. I’ve been on the bill at Bed Post a couple times before and it’s always a hoot: the host, Erin Pim, is a whip-smart driven fox, and she always picks such funny, talented, magnetic people for her show’s lineup. It was an honor to be invited back!

I played 3 sexy and/or kinky songs of mine: “Compliance,” “Casual,” and “A Nerd Like You.” Then I settled in with a whiskey on the rocks to watch the other acts, including adorable comedian Emily Bilton and burlesque bombshell Zyra Lee Vanity. Such a fun evening!

What I’m wearing:
• A navy blue smoky eye and red lipstick
• Hair in braided pigtails because Sir said so
• Blue L’Amour-Propre collar, also because Sir said so
• “It’s Magic” T-shirt – Pen and Kink
• Navy high-waisted skirt – Old Navy
• Navy tights – Hue
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• (Not pictured) Leather jacket for that rock-star edge

A Bespoke Signature Scent From My Love

Kate Sloan
Photo via Stephen Dirkes

I often joke-without-joking that, at 26, I’m not an adult yet and I don’t know when I will be. True, I’ve reached certain milestones I associate with adulthood – living away from home, having a stable job, making to-do lists with boring things on them like “submit tax forms” and “take out the recycling” – but, in many ways, I still think of myself as a child. For all the Adult Benchmarks I’ve crossed off my list, there are many more I have not – like owning a set of glassware, getting a driver’s license, and, until recently, having a signature scent.

That last one happened quite recently, in fact. You see, for my birthday, my boyfriend commissioned perfumer Stephen Dirkes of Euphorium Brooklyn to make me my own custom fragrance. (Cue swoony girlish screaming.)

My love was mysterious about it throughout the entire process. “I met with a guy named Stephen today about your birthday gift,” he told me a few weeks before I was to turn 26. “He says the timeline is tight, but he thinks we can make it work.”

The following week, he updated me: “Today I did a bunch of research and sent Stephen a lot of what I learned. Hopefully it’ll be useful.” I was mystified. What did he have up his sleeve?!

Finally, a few days before my birthday, my beau arrived in Toronto for a weekend visit. Not long after getting to my apartment and setting down his bags, he told me, “I wanna give you your present now, because I can’t wait any longer.”

At his behest, I put on a blindfold while he rooted through his suitcase for the present, so I wouldn’t see anything until he wanted me to. Then he had me hold my upturned wrists out in front of me, and I felt him spray them with a cold liquid. An unfamiliar scent hit my nostrils, floral and dark and complicated. And then my love took off my blindfold and handed me a bottle of Aimanté.

I practically started hyperventilating as he explained how he had turned an idea into a perfume. He knew someone who had commissioned Stephen Dirkes to make a custom scent, and, knowing about my fragrance proclivities, thought I might like one of my own. (Um, very yes.) So he set up a meeting with Stephen and started collecting information about my scent preferences however he could: searching through old tweets and blog posts, looking up my favorite perfumes to determine which notes they had in common, and pondering how to distill his love for me into a scent.

Scents have been a recurring motif in our relationship, as I’m sure they are in many. Shortly after our first date, I told him the smell of him was still flitting through my memory, and he texted me a link to the cologne he’d been wearing. Since then, he’s decided which perfume I should wear when we’re out together, left me shirts of his to inhale deeply in his absence, sent me flowers to excite my senses during depressed spells, and even kept the occasional pair of my panties to sniff when he misses me. Giving me a unique perfume seemed like a natural evolution of the olfactory flirtation we’d already been engaged in for quite some time.

“The juice” went through a few iterations; my partner brought some rough drafts on sampling cards for me to sniff. The final fragrance is aggressively feminine and sexy, yet quirky – like me. It’s a blend of blood orange, red geranium, balsam, amber, cocoa, patchouli, and vetiver, which reads to me like a peculiar mishmash of notes but which flows together undeniably well when you actually sniff it.

The name, Aimanté, is a French word meaning either “loving” or “magnetic,” depending on context. It’s a nod to how the two of us have often described our attraction as inevitable, ineffable, magnetic. On our second date, yearning to kiss him but not yet allowed, I told him, “I feel like a magnet,” and he said, “I do too.”

The scent itself intrigued me from the first, and has grown on me with every wear. When my darling debuted it on my wrists that day, it struck me as outsized: too loud for li’l old me, bolder and brasher and more beautiful than I have ever felt. But then I thought of something Helena Fitzgerald once wrote in the Dry Down: “Giving someone perfume as a gift is a chance to show them who they are to you,” she theorized, “and receiving perfume as a gift is the opportunity to wear that self as a costume, for brief periods of time to live as the person someone else understands you to be.”

With that in mind, the perfume felt more right to me. It’s like when someone who loves you takes a photo of you and captures a beauty you’ve never been able to see in yourself. I began to feel stirrings of the zaftig confidence evoked by the fragrance, which I know my partner sees in me but which I often can’t see in myself. What an unspeakably powerful gift to give someone.

Like most perfumes, Aimanté goes through an evolution as you wear it. The first few minutes are heady and floral, a burst of ridiculous femininity, like a wealthy woman posing for a portrait in her powder room, clutching a bouquet of geraniums. On me, it fades down gradually, hour by hour, into something sweeter and simpler. The sinful creaminess of the cocoa and vetiver sing at its core, so I can be a brassy broad by day and an elegant femme by night. The truth of me is somewhere between those two extremes – I’m neither totally bold nor totally docile – so I like that my new perfume oscillates between these two types of woman, too.

The idea of having a “signature scent” has long appealed to me, ever since I was rocking Kate by Kate Moss daily in the 10th grade and maybe even before that. But I rarely found a fragrance that resonated enough to make it my go-to. Certain faves have emerged over the years – Varvatos, Tobacco Vanille, Noel au Balcon, and Aoud Lime, to name just a few – but seldom has one endured as the scent I wanted to represent me in others’ minds and memories. None of them felt entirely like “me.” I suppose it took a partner who knows me inside and out to create a scent that really feels, wholly and harmoniously, like the essence of me.

I can’t think of another gift I’ve received that made me feel as seen, as understood, or as loved as this one. And I’m reminded of that deep, fierce love each time I lift my wrist to my nose.

Behind the Seams: Playground Conference Edition

Kate Sloan

February 23rd, 2018. I wore this during the daytime on the first day of the Playground Conference. Later, I would change into a much more salacious dress for the opening plenary, but this one was a good wholesome choice for good wholesome activities, like trekking across town with my suitcase in tow, checking into the hotel, grabbing a quick McDonald’s takeout lunch with Bex, and greeting a bunch of pals I hadn’t seen in ages.

Part of my Playground-specific protocol with my Sir was that he chose which dress I should wear on which day for the duration of the conference. I’d sent him my schedule so he could make informed decisions, and he did so well.

I think this dress is very DD/lg. It’s kind of perfect.

What I’m wearing:
• Hand-me-down Danier leather jacket with a “Pun Slut” pin from L’Amour-Propre (a gift from my love, who understands my heart) and an impact play pin from Kinktionary
• Pink and white heart-print dress – CowCow (their dresses are cheap, slinky, and come in about a billion different prints – would recommend!)
• Pink sparkly Tarina Tarantino heart necklace – vintage on eBay
• Black leggings – H&M
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Pink lipstick – probably Make Up For Ever Aqua Rouge in “Fuchsia” or Sugarpill lipstick in “Girl Crush,” I’m not sure which
• Recently dyed and cut hair by Paul Taylor at Avalon Hair Design, who’s been doing my hair for at least a decade

February 24th, 2018. The first morning of Playground, I texted my partner a bunch while lying in bed drinking coffee from the in-room Keurig machine, and then slipped into this outfit to go see Kevin Patterson‘s opening keynote, which was excellent.

After that, I attended a session about kink negotiations, bought a fancy impact toy at the Weal & Breech table in the vendors room, eagerly soaked up a session on kink psychology, watched (and adored) Bex’s panel on polyamory and masculinity, and then skipped downstairs to record a live Dildorks episode. Then I went out for dinner with three other introverts who were similarly overwhelmed by the Con Life, which was a blessing because we all sat staring at our phones in silence for most of the meal – exactly what I needed after such a busy day. #IntrovertLyfe!

What I’m wearing:
• Pink and yellow dress featuring strawberry vulvas and banana penises (or, as my Sir called it, “Bananacock and Berrycunt”) – the great Joanna Thangiah, whose shop is always my first stop for sexyweird clothes
• Blue suede collar – L’Amour-Propre (our conference protocol dictated that I wear my collar every time I presented publicly)
• Holographic pink bow barrette – Forever 21
• Blue sparkly star ring – a now-defunct Etsy shop called CBT’s Closet way back in 2008
• Navy blue Funkit Toys Signet ring – a gift from the inimitable Kenton (this is the ultimate sartorial wink to sex toy nerds with a fondness for fingerbanging)
• Black leggings – H&M
• Black leather Frye harness boots

February 25th, 2018. One more outfit for one more full day of conferencing! First off, I headed to Bex’s informative and hilarious blowjob workshop. Next I attended a brilliant panel about intersectionality and dating, which gave me a lot to think about. Then, me and a bunch of blogger babes grabbed a long, leisurely lunch at Fran’s, complete with boozy milkshakes.

After lunch, I sat in on a session called “Ask a Sadist” and took lots of feverish notes. Then we all attended the closing keynote and said our teary goodbyes. Con life is wild!

What I’m wearing:
• Kaleidoscopic rainbow dress – CowCow (one word of warning about these dresses: the fabric is very, um, nipply, so you’ll probably wanna wear a bra – I usually go braless, but I can’t with these!)
• Pink sparkly Tarina Tarantino heart necklace – vintage on eBay
• Official conference lanyard (oh, the glamour)
• Shiny turquoise hair scrunchie – American Apparel
• Blue sparkly star ring – CBT’s Closet
• Vulva ring, custom-made to look like my actual vulva – Catstache Accessories
• Black leggings – H&M
• Black leather Frye harness boots

Behind the Seams: Laughs, Leather, & Layers

Kate Sloan

February 15th, 2018. I wore this to go see PotterProv, the monthly Harry Potter-themed improv show at Comedy Bar, with my friend Zoë. It wasn’t really a thematically appropriate outfit – I mean, unless you think Remus Lupin is a daddy dom – but I had just gotten this shirt in the mail and wanted to wear it out.

I often like to get a li’l dressed up when I go see comedy, because comedians and improvisors are so frequently total babes. Plus I’ve dated enough of them that at comedy venues, there is always a real risk of running into exes or people with whom I went on one or two ill-fated Tinder dates… yikes.

What I’m wearing:
• Hair in little pigtail-knots (I started doing these after seeing Caitlin Roberts wear her hair like this; it’s so cute and easy, especially on days when my hair isn’t cooperating)
• Pink lipstick and pink blush
• Pink pavé Tarina Tarantino heart necklace – eBay, after searchin’ and sleuthin’ and biddin’ for a looong time to find this exact one
• “Daddy” tank top – Redbubble
• Pink bralette – Gap
• Black and white polka-dotted skater skirt – ASOS years ago
• Black leggings – H&M
• Pastel rainbow glitter Doc Martens (!!) – ordered from Urban Outfitters back when these were seemingly unavailable anywhere else in Canada and I NEEDED THEM

February 28th, 2018. Leather jackets always give me so many Gender Feelings! I’ve had this one for years and years and I love its blazer-esque simplicity: it looks equally good over dresses or more boyish outfits like this one. I can’t wait for the weather to get a little warmer here so I can start rocking this jacket every day instead of my winter coat that looks like a literal sleeping bag.

I wore this out to a café to work, and then I dropped by my parents’ place to pick up some sex toys that had been delivered there for me (including the Liberator Axis, oooh!).

My boyfriend told me to put my collar on just before I left my apartment because I had a bunch of writing to do and he wanted me to stay focused. What a sweetheart.

What I’m wearing:
• Danier leather jacket – hand-me-down from an older cousin many years ago
• “Pun Slut” pin from L’Amour-Propre and impact play pin from Kinktionary
• Royal blue suede collar from L’Amour-Propre
• Bright yellow Goodbye Honolulu T-shirt – a gift from Max
• Black jeans (a rarity – I loathe wearing pants)! – Gap
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Ye olde giant black nerd glasses – Hakim Optical
• Heart-eyes emoji phone case – Redbubble

March 16th, 2018. The first time my love came to visit me in Toronto, he gave me specific clothing instructions: I was supposed to wear an outfit that would be fun for him to take off me, like unwrapping a present. Now that’s a femme challenge that I’m absolutely up to!

I chose this ensemble lovingly in the days leading up to his arrival, and laid it out on a chair in my bedroom the night before. When I woke up that day, I finished up my morning dayjob work and then slipped into this outfit slowly, methodically, very aware as I slid into each layer that my beautiful boyfriend would be removing it from me in reverse order in just a couple hours. And he did, and it was lovely.

What I’m wearing:
• Blue and black heart-print cardigan – H&M many years ago (I’ve had this since at least 2007!)
• Pink lace slip – vintage via Coldfish on Etsy
• Navy high-waisted A-line skirt – Old Navy years ago (I used to wear this a lot when I wanted to look businessy in journalism school)
• Pink and navy kneesocks – no idea, but they’re cute, eh?
• (Unseen) Pink and purple polka-dotted panties which I later gave to my boyfriend as a gift because he did such a good job getting them wet while I wore them – La Senza, I believe

What’s your favorite outfit you’ve worn recently?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 12 Femme Essentials

Kate Sloan

December is here, and therefore, so is 12 Days of Girly Juice, my year-end wrap-up series! In the next month, I’ll summarize my whole year in selfies, sex toys, sexual encounters, tweets, and more. But today, we begin with a subject that’s dear to my heart: beauty and fashion! Here are my top 12 must-have femme items of 2017…

Giorgio Armani Rouge d’Armani lipstick in “Lucky Red”

Last November, I went to Rome with my mom, and it was momentous. All day every day, we walked around that ancient city soaking up world-famous sights. It was almost too much beauty and history to handle, and made me feel like I was buzzing right out of my body with deep glee and meaning.

One day, we visited the Spanish Steps. Sitting on those stairs surrounded by other tourists, I felt called to buy something that would remind me of this place. I didn’t want gimmicky miniatures or boring old postcards, so I did what any consumerist femme would do: I walked into Sephora. (Yes, there is a Sephora opposite the Spanish Steps. Yes, it is a strange, anachronistic place. It’s like femme purgatory: surreal and always bustling and highly unlikely.)

I wanted a lipstick, since that’s the cosmetic item I use most often and also the one I associate most with glamour. I figured it would make me happy in subsequent months to be able to think of said lipstick as a souvenir from glorious Rome, and to tell people that when they asked about it. Suitably, the one I went with was by Italian brand Giorgio Armani. It’s a cool-toned, bright red that makes me feel like a 1950s movie star or a high-gloss spy. It goes on satiny and dries to a slightly more matte crimson that stays put better than almost any other lipstick in my arsenal (which it damn well better, for $43). It’s my favorite red lipstick I’ve ever owned, and I have owned a lot. And that mystique only has a little to do with where I bought it.

Coach turnlock tote in turquoise crossgrain leather

I bought this on sale for half-price last holiday season, and it has served me well all year long. Not only is it the most aggressively, delightfully vivid shade of turquoise I’ve ever seen, it’s also roomy enough for almost all my various adventures. I’ve taken it as an overnight bag to sex-dates at beaux’ houses, as my carry-on when shuttling back and forth between Toronto and New York, and as a gig bag when en route to photoshoots or porn-y events that required wardrobe changes. It has lots of pockets, which I tend to stuff with extra tissues, mints, love notes, bobby pins, lipsticks, vibrators, business cards, supplements, and lube samples. It’s my dream bag and I adore it.

Tarina Tarantino heart necklaces

I have three of these now: one small purple/green/turquoise one, one larger one emblazoned with Queen Alice, and (my favorite) one giant pink sparkly one that attracts stares and compliments wherever I go. I bought the Alice necklace direct from the company during a sale, and snapped up the other two on eBay, since they seem to have been discontinued. They make me happy every damn time I wear them.

My heart necklaces function like day collars for me: they sit heavily around my neck, grounding me, reminding me of how good I am, keeping me on task. In times of emotional turmoil, they also feel like shields for my heart, deflecting negative energy and keeping me safe. I hope to collect a couple more – maybe a blue one and a black one – because we all need more sparkly hearts in our lives!

Perfume

It’s hard to pick a specific perfume here, because I’ve loved so many this year! Under the influence of The Dry Down, a mega-poetic newsletter about the philosophical and emotional side of perfume, I started buying perfume samples galore to try out. This is much cheaper than committing to full bottles of particular scents, and also makes more sense with the mercurial way I tend to fall in love with a perfume for a while, then move on to a different one.

Some of my 2017 fragrance faves: John Varvatos, a spicy, masc-leaning gourmand. Leatherstock, which smells like straight-up leather and which I like to combine with other scents for an extra kinky dimension. Tom of Finland, which is like pressing your nose against the pheromone-laden skin of someone attractive and comforting. Memoirs of a Trespasser, the scent of a rugged, babely adventurer come back home to roost. Carnal Flower, which smells like (per Helena Fitzgerald) “monied femininity.” Good Girl, a somewhat heavy, almost overbearingly feminine scent that reminds me of slutty honey. And most recently, Noel au Balcon, a hyper-festive wintertime scent that reminds me of cloves, oranges, honey, and the champagne-fizzy excitement of a tipsy conversation with an interesting stranger at a holiday party.

H&M skater dresses

H&M did a wonderful thing this year: they made what is basically the perfect dress, as far as I’m concerned, and released it in 15+ different colors and prints. Best of all, they priced each dress at $15.

I own said dress in 10+ different colorways now, and they get more wear than practically anything else in my closet. They’re just exactly what I want from a dress: comfortable, flattering, versatile. This year I wore them on dates, to shows, in photoshoots. I danced in them, kissed in them, partied in them, even occasionally fucked in them. They are perfection and I’m so glad I stocked up.

Yo Sox

Last month, I settled in for a phone sex session with a handsome gentleman, and he asked me – as phone sex suitors are wont to do – what I was wearing. I’d promised to wear something nice for him, something that made me feel sexy, even if he wouldn’t actually be seeing it. “I’m wearing a T-shirt, some panties, and a pair of kneesocks,” I told him, truthfully. He made a sound that was half-gasp, half-growl. I smiled.

My enduring love for knee-high and thigh-high socks comes partly from the predictable reaction they get out of many men, and partly from how they make me feel in my kinky little heart. When I’m putting together an ensemble designed to make me feel like a babygirl, girly socks are a vital part of the look. This year I discovered Yo Sox, a company that sells whimsical socks both online and in their brick-and-mortar store on Toronto’s Queen Street West, and I swiftly fell in love. It’s hard to feel sad when there are unicorns or whales prancing across your feet!

Tiny black shorts

Another H&M acquisition, I bought these minuscule shorts for $15 on an impulsive shopping trip in April. They ended up being a go-to for me all summer, garnering tons of compliments and making me feel cute in a way I rarely feel when my chubby bod is being shown off so flagrantly. They work well with crop tops, bralettes, and even over tights for a more cool-weather-appropriate outfit. I even wore them a lot while mired in post-breakup depression, because they felt effortless and accommodating.

BH Cosmetics Smokey Eyes palette

I didn’t do full-on fancy faces as often this year as I have in previous years, because frankly, most of the time I just couldn’t be bothered. But I did buy this eyeshadow palette on the recommendation of a femme friend, and it has served me well for many dress-up occasions this year.

The deep blues and purples flatter my hazel eyes. The silvers and greys allow for striking smoky looks. The pinks fulfill my deepest femme desires. In summation: this palette rules.

BH Cosmetics spooley brush

Another great find from this cosmetics company: the best eyebrow brush I’ve ever used. I’ve written before about Anastasia Dipbrow, my go-to brow product, but I’ve neglected to mention the importance of the brush you use to apply it: Dipbrow is finicky as hell and you gotta have your tools on point. This one has a spooley (i.e. eyebrow comb) on one side and an angled application brush on the other, so I can flip back and forth quickly between shaping my brows and filling them in. I use this every day and it has made my makeup routine both more efficient and more joyful!

Danier vintage leather jacket

Leather was important to my aesthetic this year. In fact, I’m possibly developing a bit of a leather kink (she wrote, having recently fallen asleep cuddling a leather impact toy to her nose so she could smell it all night long). One of my most beloved leather possessions is a jacket I inherited from an older cousin years ago. It’s simple, sexy, and classic. And it makes me feel like a total badass.

Many times, I’ve considered upgrading to a more classic motorcycle style, but having tried on many such jackets, I think they’re boxier and more boyish than I can comfortably pull off. The blazer-esque fit of this one seems to match my aesthetic better and I like it. Although, I must say, if I ever encounter a hot pink leather biker jacket, I might have to buy it on the spot…

Lacy bralettes

There is something about cute bralettes that makes me feel adorable and put-together even if I am essentially wearing underwear in public. My favorite ones are by Aerie, as they strike a balance between aesthetics and comfort that one rarely encounters in the realm of lingerie. Most of the ones I currently own are either turquoise or pink (how predictable) so I’d like to expand my bralette color palette in the coming months. Maybe I need one in red, yellow, or black…

Animal Hair internal clitoris necklace

I bought this necklace to advertise my sex-nerdiness and it certainly does the trick. Everywhere I go, people either say, “What is that?” or “Oh my god, it’s the internal clit!” I enjoy the way its hot pink shade sets off pink lipstick and pops against all-black ensembles. Animal Hair makes a light blue one too, so I think I’m gonna expand my clit collection in the new year!

What were your favorite fashion and beauty items of 2017?