What Tefi Pessoa Can’t Live Without

It smells like your first deodorant you get with your mom, you know what I mean? It smells like a deodorant that you would get for a middle-school dance, which is what I’m always getting dressed for. It also has 72-hour protection. Now listen, I think everybody should be showering more often than every 72 hours. So I’m not using it for 72 hours, I’m not using it at its threshold. But I think it feels good to know that if I was ever stranded on an island with somebody else, they wouldn’t smell me for 72 hours. Not only does she smell good, but I can rely on her.

I was watchingMob Wives, as all chic women do. These three women got into an argument outside by one of their parked cars, and I could not hear what they were saying. I was like,Their hair is so glossy. What the fuck?Literally so luminous. And I was like,I need to get my gloss game up.So I’ve gone through three different glosses, but one day I was surfing the Amazon and saw that this one said “best seller” and I was like,Well … I don’t know. Sometimes the Amazon can lie to a girl.

People stop me in the street and they’re like, “Why is your hair so shiny?” And I’m like,“I know. It’s the L’Oreal freaking mask.” I wash my hair once a week, so I try to put it on right before I wash. I’ll do my little oil. I don’t know if the oil works, but TikTok says it does for growth. And then I’ll cover it up with the mask for ten minutes. Then you try to pretend the stains on your walls are totally fine. It’s a small price to pay for glossy hair.

If you’re a girl who takes Vyvanse, a 3 p.m. Celsius is mandatory. Three is the time where I’m like,I’m either going to continue with the day or I’m going to give up. So if I have my Celsius, I can continue. goPuff only ever has the orange flavor, and I think I’ve just gotten used to the orange one. The fizz-less one is insane: That’s caffeine juice, that’s crazy. But I love any of the fruit flavors. I’m a fruit person, except for the Tropical Vibe. Jail. Horrible. That tastes like drinking plastic. I cannot get behind it. I cannot endorse. Did you watchJurassic Park?When that fucking little lizard gets Newmanand it has that secretion of the fluid, I think that must have tasted like Tropical Vibe.

I’m surrounded by 12 empty bottles right now. This is the best water on the freaking market, and it still has all of the minerals that you need. My dentist was like, “You have a little bit of dry mouth. Do you talk a lot?” I’m like, “You’re going to get to know me.” And she’s like, “You need to put minerals into your water.” But Mountain Valley, she looked it up and she goes, “Wow, this is good water.” Yeah, bitch. It tastes the best, it’s crisp, it’s the most refreshing, and it comes in a glass bottle.

I used to be the type of person who was like, “There’s no difference in water.” But now with this water, if I have, dare I say, a Dasani, I’m like, “Oh, this iscacawater.” And the Mountain Valley is heaven on earth. It makes me nervous to talk about it because it’s always sold out. People are catching on, and I’m scared it’s going to be sold out forever.

Sometimes a girl will get on a plane to go on vacation or for a business trip, and when she gets off the plane, she has a UTI. No girl deserves this. It’s happened to me so many times. It happened to me literally a month ago. I was in Miami for a job. I got off the plane and I was like,There is no way in fucking hell I have a UTI right now.

Taking the D-Mannose every day is good for prevention because you never know. Sometimes life happens to us all. We UTI from here and there, you know what I mean? You can’t control it. And being a girl is so wonderful that you get a UTI for no reason. If you’re depressed, you can get a UTI. If you’re about to get your period, you can get a UTI. If you’ve been sitting down for too long, you can get a UTI. If you’ve been standing up for too long, you can get a UTI. Life is like getting a UTI. You never know when it’s going to hit. So the best thing I’d tell my girls is: You already know about the probiotic, you got to take the D-Mannose. With the spring water to get your minerals — you see how it all comes together? This is a lifestyle.

This shit works. I have spent 12 hours on set in Brooklyn in June in the sun. I’ve used this in saunas. I’ve used this going out clubbing, dancing, and I am a sweaty girl. I’m the kind of girl that I wake up and they’re like, “Did you jump into a pool and you’re sleeping?” I’m like, “No, just a sweaty sleeper.” That’s me. I am telling you, I go to sleep sometimes by accident — oops — with my makeup on, and I wake up and my makeup is fine. I don’t understand the science behind it, but I love the science. I always love science and her work.

I did a brand collab with Urban Decay, and it gave me four bottles. And I know some people will be like,Oh, whatever — she did an ad.But I buy it. I re-up my stock with my own money.

Never in my life did I think I could go to sleep with a thunderstorm and red light and then wake up to the happiest little birds chirping. Waking up with an alarm clock on an iPhone … that’s horrible, right?

“Welcome to the world, princess. Today’s going to be a great day.” That’s what the Hatch birds tell me, when I wake up to those little bird sounds. And it can re-create sunset or sunrise if you want. This is why science is available to us. This is what science was intended for, because I’m not a farmer and I have never been awakened by birds ever in my life. I’m from Miami, and I used to wake up to my mom — always coming up with another renovation — and her six construction workers walking into my bedroom and her being like, “Yeah, so what you guys are going to do is …” Or it was my horrible iPhone or the blaring trucks outside my windows in Brooklyn. The Hatch makes me feel like a human girl. Julie Andrews is about to come in and teach me a song — that’s what it makes you feel like.

One of my biggest fears in the world — besides sharks and bears and the ocean and outer space — is somebody walking into my house and then being like, “Oh, there’s an animal here.” That litter-box smell. And my cat, Margelina Jolie, she’s so perfect and gorgeous, but she is someone who, for example, when my brother was cat-sitting for me, he goes, “Hey, Tefi, bad news. Overnight, a Rottweiler must have come in and shit in your cat’s litter box.” I’ve never seen a cat poop this big. I’m telling you, she is the biggest cat pooper ever. And when you walk into my house, it does not smell like cat or poop or anything. It’s incredible stuff. The Litter Robot also comes with an app, so I can see how frequently she’s going, if the litter is low or how much she weighs, or if there’s anything suspicious with the litter. And it comes with its own baggies for the actual litter box. Again, this is what science was made for.

I am in my greenery era. I have a Reddit, and I’m subscribed only to gardening, U.K. gardening, birding — all nature stuff. And I have a bird of paradise, and she’s always suffered. She’s never looked a hundred percent. And somebody on Reddit was like, “Hey, girl, you need to get a humidifier for your topical plants.” Why the fuck didn’t I think of that? Sometimes the answers are right there in front of us and we don’t know. And the answers are humidity.

Now she’s blossoming; she’s blooming. She has never looked healthier. It looks like I’m in the Amazon with her. I like to move it around the plant too, to make sure that all the leaves are getting equal opportunity.

I’m Colombian. So my whole life in my mom’s house, this was the only coffee available to anyone. I think it’s the best coffee ever. And it reminds me of my childhood. If you’re faced with,Oh my God, I don’t have any more Celsius. All I have is Tropical Vibe,fear not: There is Juan Valdez coffee available for you.

It’s rich, wonderful. I mean, I don’t like that much of an intense coffee. I love a sweet café con leche. I love a warm, rich cup of coffee in the morning with a little bit of milk. And I’ve tried Starbucks, I’ve tried Folgers — you name it, I’ve tried all of these American brands, and I think Colombian coffee is the best coffee available. And it’s a family-owned business. Don’t you like families? Don’t you want to support families?

Crystals are vital to my life because I am very woo-woo. My friend Anastasia, she’s on TikTok and Instagram, she’s a Haitian witch, and I’ve been following her forever. She sells these mystery boxes. For some reason, they always hit. I’ll be having a hard month, and I’ll get a mystery box. It’s a shit ton of crystals — 1,000 percent my doorman thinks I’m smuggling something. But she’ll be like, “Oh, here’s a mystery box dedicated to confidence. You can do this.” I’m like,What the fuck?Or the box will be about vulnerability or vanishing negative energy or creativity or something like that. I’m like,Is she watching me right now?She’s so intuitive. And it’s a woman-owned, Latin-owned business out in California. She’s very approachable, and I know that her crystals are sourced responsibly, and she’s cool as fuck.

Begging the Lord for a break, that’s what I use it for. I get on my hands and knees and I clutch my crystals. I put ’em in my bra, everywhere. And I go,Please give me a break. Everything is so fast-paced, so when I meditate, sometimes I’ll grab a crystal that’s for grounding. And I’ll do a little meditation. I feel like in the neighborhood of the internet, especially if you work online, there’s never nighttime. Just always going, going, going, going, going. You can feel like you can’t catch up, or everything can get really overwhelming. But crystals are calibrating, you know what I mean? That’s why we have quartz in our watches. So I just try to recalibrate and remember that I’m a human girl with very glossy hair and great water.