Unsexy Tasks that are Important for a Sexy Life

In my tradwife era

It’s been such a horrible couple of weeks in LA. While I feel incredibly grateful that my neighborhood wasn’t affected by the fires, I sadly have many friends who weren’t so lucky, and my heart breaks for them. The pictures and videos of the devastation in the Palisades and Altadena were devastating - the thought that two beautiful, thriving, communities could be wiped out overnight is impossible to comprehend.

Altadena is such a hidden gem neighborhood in Los Angeles - all of my coolest and most artistic friends were buying houses and settling there. It’s nestled between the gigantic Angeles National Forest and Pasadena, a tiny but special neighborhood full of the cutest coffee shops, gorgeous hiking trails, charming small businesses, and even quirky, weird, iconic, only-in-LA places like The Bunny Museum (a couple’s collection of 40,000+ bunny-related objects). Some of those places - including The Bunny Museum, a place that was on my LA bucket list forever - don’t exist anymore, which is unimaginable. My heart breaks for the Altadena and Palisades community, my friends who lost their homes, and LA as a whole. Everyone in LA knows someone who was affected, and it makes our big, weird, spread-out city feel a lot smaller.

If, like me, you're feeling a strong desire to help and want to support those in need, here’s a thoughtfully compiled list of Black families in Altadena who have been displaced and are seeking assistance through GoFundMe. Many of these campaigns could use more visibility and support. If you’d rather donate time instead of money, you can help fire victims with personal recovery - assisting with paperwork, insurance claims, and the like. Sign up for more info here.

Anyhow! While I love talking about shopping and buying things, lately, I’ve been reevaluating my relationship with consumerism and, surprisingly, taking a break from my usual habit of mindless spending. I’ve discovered the joy of Anti Haul videos, where influencers share the things they don’t need and no longer want to buy. Inspired by this, I’ve made a conscious effort to focus less on what I don’t have and more on cherishing and maintaining what I already own. For me, this has meant prioritizing the care and upkeep of my home, my wardrobe, and myself. Not to sound all tradwife, but I’ve found unexpected joy in the most mundane of tasks. It’s time to demystify, reframe, and glamorize "boring tasks around the house - because taking care of yourself is one of the most empowering—and dare I say, sexy —things you can do.

Ironing

I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t own an iron until this year, which is insane. But as someone who lives in fear of ruining clothing, I always felt intimidated and scared of irons, certain that if I used one I would put it on the wrong temperature and leave giant burn marks on everything I own. Apparently, millennial iron aversion is a thing. The overall sales of irons are continuously on the decline, most sharply in 18-to-44 year olds.

But I was sick of always wearing wrinkly clothing. And my steamer just wasn’t cutting it, especially with thicker fabric like denim. It was time to take the plunge.

My phone broke and I lost the photos I took of my ironing station, so we all have to make do with this stock photo of the $30 iron I bought off Amazon

I faced my fears and bought a Black & Decker iron and a crappy ironing board from Target. I tentatively followed the instructions, and started with some wrinkly pants and felt a giant endorphin rush as the magical iron did its thing. I was immediately hooked, and now I literally can’t stop ironing everything I own. I feel so powerful, so adult, so wrinkle-free. I’m so iron-pilled, I’m even ironing my placemats and napkins. These gorgeous block-printed cotton napkins I buy in bulk from India have been in a continuous state of wrinklage since pre-covid, and now they’re clean and crisp. Ironing is magic!

Pre-ironing, these napkins looked like ass

Cleaning Hairbrushes

I’m very into hairbrush culture, and am a firm believer in owning different hairbrushes for different styling needs. I have a hairbrush for wet hair, a different brush for dry hair, a different brush for slick backed buns, etc. My brushes all do very different things and I can’t live without any of them. I assume it’s comparable to the way chefs feel about their knives? The one thing all of my hairbrushes have in common? Is I BARELY EVER WASH ANY OF THEM, and because of that, most of the time, they look disgusting. Sure, I do the bare minimum ad pull hair off the bristles in between uses, but between product buildup, dead skin, and dust, some of my hairbrushes were looking soooooo gross.

What is this white stuff and why do I let my brushes get like this?

Why aren’t we, as a society, talking more about cleaning our hairbrushes? I feel like hairbrush maintenance should be a larger part of the self care conversation. It’s like, why TF do I know how to do Ayurvedic oil pulling but not know the proper way to clean a tool that I use literally every day?

I TikToked and YouTubed and found lots of videos like this one. Lots of people recommended using a special tool - this $10 device had great reviews, and while I felt dumb buying a brush to clean my other brushes, it’s legit a game changer.

This tool changed my life

You use the sharp end to pull out all the stubborn hairs, and then use the brush end to scrub in between all the rows. I made a soapy warm bath with unscented Dr. Bronner’s, but the internet says you can use any shampoo or dish soap.

Important! After you’re done scrubbing, you should always dry your brushes on a towel FACE DOWN, so any water that potentially got in the rubbery bladder of the brush drains out.

Sweater Shaving

The best part of winter? SWEATERS! I love the 2 months in LA when I can bust out my knit collection. I admit, I don’t take the greatest care of my knits - instead of hand washing them, I usually throw them in the machine on the coldest, gentlest setting. Because of my sloppy sweater care, I thought it was normal for sweaters to pill.

All of my sweaters were covered in sweater pimples

I realized that I didn’t have to live like this and there was something I could do about it. Enter my new favorite tool, the fabric shaver.

Happiness is a $10 fabric shaver

I impulsively bought a $10 fabric shaver on Amazon and set up a shaving station in front of the TV, thinking I’d passively shave a bunch of sweater armpits while watching Jeopardy. Turns out that fabric shaving is amazing. Not only was the sound of the blades whirring and sucking up sweater chunks addictively soothing, but it gave my neglected sweaters new life. Highly recommend getting into fabric shaving - if not to make your sweater’s nibby armpits look better, then for the ASMR alone.

Pumicing my Thicc Big Toe Calluses

My feet are mid AF. They’re a solid 6/10 on a good day. I’ve made my peace with having below-average looking feet, and I do my best to keep them vaguely presentable with pedicures so they’re not like, Nosferatu-level scary looking. Historically, the best part of getting a pedicure is the sloughing off of dead skin - specifically, the giant callus on my big toe. My big toes are usually caked up with a callus, but for the 3 days after a pedicure, my big toe looks less lumpy and crusty, and even looks - if I squint- somewhat feminine and shapely. But inevitably, my perma-callus would always return and I’d go back to having Jewish hobbit feet.

Until I realized - why was I waiting for pedicures when I could pumice my own big toe?

I am 99% more likely to buy a product if it has a cartoon mascot on it

Enter Mr. Pumice, who’s singlehandedly gotten my crusty big toes into shape. I keep Mr. Pumice in the shower and toward the end of my shower, when my feet are nice and wet, I go to TOWN on my toes. It has two sides - extra coarse and medium - and you can probably guess which side I use. Incorporating Mr. Pumice into my life is effortless - which I like because I’m lazy - and while my feet aren’t gorgeous, they’ve gone from a 6 to at least a 6.5 out of 10. And that’s progress.

Unsexy Tasks I Need to Get Into

Now that I’m in my cleangirl tradwife era, I’m realizing there’s so many other cleaning-based tasks I need to start getting into. Here are some that are on my mind.

Cleaning My Laptop

Every time I buy a new Macbook, I promise myself I’ll take better care of it. This time, it’ll be different. I won’t eat while I’m typing. I’ll clean the keys. I’ll protect the delicate machinery from getting full of weird crumbs from whatever crumbly snack I’m eating. But inevitably, I break my promise, and my Macbook becomes filthy, narsty, dirty, and full of unidentified chunks. This year, I’m going to figure out how to get all up in the crevices of my laptop and clean it out. Sort of hoping the answer involves “cleaning putty,” because it just seems really fun to use.

Cleaning my Washing Machine

I really, really, really don’t want to clean my washing machine. The mere idea that something that I use to wash other things needs to itself be washed fills me with existential rage. I have no idea how to do it but so help me god, I will figure it out.

Cleaning my Floors

I’m ashamed to admit that I barely know how to properly clean my own floors. I used to think vacuuming and then lazily dragging a Swiffer Wet Jet across the floors was enough, but I think Swiffers are like, the Easy Bake Oven version of actually mopping. Hoping 2025 is the year I actually get into my mop-era. I’m eyeing this product, which seems like the Rolls Royce of mop buckets.

That’s it! Thank you for reading, and I genuinely apologize if you found reading about my passion for callus removal boring. I want to know about your favorite unsexy tasks! How often do you clean your hairbrushes? Do you own an iron? And be honest, have you ever cleaned your laundry machine?

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