Cuppa Connections Episode 12 : The Makeup Industry and Coffee

This episode is about a former model, Nicole Michelle, who has lived a very interesting life within world or fashion and makeup.

Over her career, she has learned a few things, and one of the most interesting things is how working with MAC cosmetics showed her how to make coffee from their foundation colors, but she doesn't stop there. Not only does she share her coffee making stories, she gives us more fun and laughter from other stories of her journey through life.

We hope you enjoy!

Transcript

Portia: 0:00

Hey guys. Welcome to Cuppa Connections. I'm Portia, and we're here coming to you from our virtual cafe, Better with a Cup of Coffee. We are savoring relationships with coffee lovers around the world and sharing their experiences that have been better with a cup of coffee. I have a wonderful guest. Her name is Nicole Michelle. She's from Norcross, Atlanta or. is that?

Nicole: 0:25

It's a suburb of Georgia.

Portia: 0:27

Today's episode is kind of funky and I love funky episodes. I love people who just bring something different to the table all the time. It's just not about visiting coffee shops it's talking to people who love coffee, but come from all walks of life, right? This episode is about the makeup industry and coffee. Now you thinking, well, what in the world does makeup have to do with coffee or the makeup industry have to do with coffee? Okay. Well, here, I'm, I'm just gonna let Nicole, Michelle tell you. Nicole? How are you?

Nicole: 1:02

I'm doing great. Thank you. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Portia: 1:07

Of course, I'm doing, I'm doing wonderful. I've been so excited ever since we finished our conversation. I don't know, weeks ago. Before we even get to coffee, I just have to ask you to tell people who you are because you are fascinated, you're funny first of all. You're hilarious. The floor is yours my dear.

Nicole: 1:27

Okay. Well guys, I am Nicole Michelle. That's actually my first and middle name, and I've gone by those two names for probably close to 30 years. Those are the names I came out with. So, I am a makeup artist and a former model, and I now have a business where I am a loctician. I lock hair and I make candles, and I still do makeup, and all of it brings me so much joy. I, I don't even think I would have balance without doing all of it. But, I also love coffee. I'm not like the connoisseur. And it's funny when you love stuff, but you never really become a connoisseur there. That's a thing. You don't have to like know everything to love something. And I found out that I don't know everything, but I enjoy constantly learning about coffee and trying different things with coffee, including I make a candle with coffee in it. How crazy is that?

Portia: 2:28

Yes, I got one of those, by the way, guys, it's fantastic. Little coffee, coffee beans in the candle, and the presentation was fantastic. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Nicole: 2:38

It's all good. And, I have a lot of crazy stories, just the life journeys, and I like sharing stories with friends. I like sharing stories over wine and coffee, food. I'm a foodie as well. That's pretty much it about me, and you'll find out some other things about me probably as we talk.

Portia: 3:00

Well, how you got into the beauty industry, as you mentioned, you were a runway and print model for many years. That was like your full-time gig.

Nicole: 3:11

Yep.

Portia: 3:12

So, you had no choice but to know about hair, about makeup, about fashion, about all this type of stuff. And then that's how it evolved and you have your business, called Nicole, Michelle Beauty, and it specializes in lock. It is a special word you use. It's sister lock, right?

Nicole: 3:31

Sister Locks is like these super tiny, I don't even know if you can see it. That's how tiny the locks are. It's a, um, patented technique. This is the one where Dr. Joanne Cornwell went to Africa, saw this technique being done, and brought it here about 27 years ago. But I do all types of locks. But this is the one where, you know, you're certified in. It's like a specialty.

Portia: 3:55

So, if anybody wanted to find you, where can they go?

Nicole: 4:00

Yeah, nicolemichellebeauty.com. Simple as that. It's that simple. Yep. Simple as that.

Portia: 4:09

Then also you have another company, which is the Tribe Collection, and that's where I got the, the beautiful and delicious smelling candle. But it's not just candles, it's comprised of everything, all scented products. Correct?

Nicole: 4:22

Yeah. That's my motto. To be well scented is a superpower. That's every aspect. You walk into a room, that's your hair that smells good, or it's not just a perfume from the department store, it's actually exuding from you. You spray things on your hair. Your home smells delicious. Your car smells great. That's just always been my, um, my signature thing and it, it did start with the department store fragrances, and they were too fake, so I just like, you know, it's like this is alcohol.

Portia: 4:55

You had mentioned to me, In our conversations before that you worked for this large corporation for many years. Tell us what the corporation was.

Nicole: 5:06

Well, the first corporation that I came out of into makeup was Ebony Fashion Fair. So I was a runway model.

Portia: 5:14

Mm-hmm.

Nicole: 5:14

And I traveled with them. I did a lot of makeup while I was with them because I actually liked doing that more. So when I came out of that, instead of going into working for them on the makeup side, I just left and started working for MAC Cosmetics, cuz that's the actual makeup. And I'm telling y'all this is like late eighties, early nineties. As we traveled, whenever we were in a city that had a MAC Cosmetics, cuz it wasn't big like it is now. We would literally go there and spend like a hundred dollars and that was like a lot of money back then. Now, you can get three things, and it's a hundred dollars. So, I end up working for MAC Cosmetics in three different states for 23 years. As I left there, I was the hiring manager at the, um, largest outlet here in Atlanta, The Lennox Square.

Portia: 6:07

Okay. So this is where coffee comes in guys.

Nicole: 6:11

Yep.

Portia: 6:14

Tell them what you told me as far as how you used the makeup for the names of the coffee.

Nicole: 6:21

Absolutely. So, I had my first coffee ever when I worked for MAC in Boston. I was, um, not a coffee drinker yet. This was New England, so our work schedules actually had a tea break, a lunch break, and a coffee break scheduled in with those words. And I had never seen anything like that originally from the Midwest. So I'm in Rome, I'm doing as the Romans. I'm gonna drink tea with y'all. I'm gonna eat little old lunch with your little bagels and cream cheese, and I'm gonna now go and have this coffee. And I didn't know how to order coffee. I just knew that I never had it before. So, I heard these girls like, when you come back bring me a C7. I'm like, that is so one of our foundation colors. I literally came back from my lunch break the very first time, went to the stockroom and got this girl a C7 foundation, because I thought she needed it for a client after my break. And she's like, what is this with this? What is this Nicole? And I'm like, C7. She said, no, I wanted coffee. So that's how I learned the shades of our foundation was how light or dark someone wanted their coffee to be. And MAC, even to this day, MAC has about 60 shades of foundation, and we have to memorize that. It's like a Cheesecake Factory menu. How those people, it's like you have to memorize this to the point where I'm looking at someone and I can tell them, you know, you are a C4. So now I know what shade to make the girls coffee because we really didn't have Starbucks. They gave you a coffee and you went over to this bar and you put your own creams, your sugars, and you know, stir and there's sign there. You better throw away your sugar packets. You know, old school. So, I learned to, to do a coffee run by the girls at work telling me, I want a C4, which is a very light, almost a little coffee with your cream, or I want a C9. And it was always C's because that was like a brownish color, and that was a MAC thing, because when I transferred to another city, it was the same thing, but I knew the language.

Portia: 8:47

Oh my God.

Nicole: 8:48

Okay, so this is a Mac thing, and then it's other cosmetic companies do it too, but they've got names, you know, like Tinder Glow or whatever. That's like,

Portia: 8:59

No way.

Nicole: 8:59

Yeah. Oh yeah. Other people.

Portia: 9:01

Wait, wait, wait. Hold up, hold up, hold up.

Nicole: 9:03

Yep. Other people do it too.

Portia: 9:06

Tender Glow for a coffee.

Nicole: 9:09

Yep.

Portia: 9:10

Shut the front door.

Nicole: 9:14

So, now I'm thinking, do people who work for like paint companies do it? I mean, if you work in Pantone, do you No, but it worked for us because you ended up just knowing, once you start doing coffee runs for your friends at work, you end up learning it anyway. And they don't have to use the language. But if they wanted something extra, they would just change the shade.

Portia: 9:40

So a C4 is a little bit of coffee in your cream? Yeah, like a C9 is on the stronger side.

Nicole: 9:49

Yeah, a C9 would be probably like, you're on your way to black, but not all, all the way drinking black coffee.

Portia: 10:02

Okay, well what is black? What is black coffee

Nicole: 10:05

then? So believe it or not, they just would say Black

Portia: 10:16

you were a mixologist before you, the word even was popular.

Nicole: 10:20

Right?

Portia: 10:21

I mean, all of you guys who did that.

Nicole: 10:23

Yep.

Portia: 10:25

No Starbucks back then, you just had, you had a little coffee station. All you had to do was remember all of these foundation names, the details of the foundation, and then you just mix the coffee.

Nicole: 10:39

Absolutely. Those were my early days in Boston. And then I worked in a couple of cities where we had the espresso bar at Nordstrom, you know about that?

Portia: 10:49

No.

Nicole: 10:50

So all Nordstroms have a coffee bar in them or in front of them. And it's owned by Nordstrom. It's called the Espresso Bar or the E bar. That was a little more sophisticated by the time, you know, we got around to that because the people who worked there actually would memorize, they did this before Starbucks. They would memorize a person's drink. They would know it. Or if you use your Nordstrom credit card, they would swipe it first, and it would jar their memory of what drink you like. So you had to be on it to tell them, I'm not ordering for myself today, cuz they would start making your drink. I'm telling you this is before Starbucks was doing this, but we did not have any Starbucks then.

Portia: 11:32

Nordstrom's as of today, do they still do that?

Nicole: 11:36

They have an espresso bar. Yeah.

Portia: 11:38

For customers just like a Starbucks.

Nicole: 11:41

Exactly. And it was before Starbucks. It's, you know, Nordstrom is outta Seattle I believe. So that coffee is what they have, the Seattle's Best.

Portia: 11:52

Interesting.

Nicole: 11:53

Yeah. So they, they started that.

Portia: 11:55

You'd love to travel. I'm sure you've ventured out and gone, you know, throughout our country and and probably throughout the world, and you said that you noticed a lot of other companies within the makeup industry doing the same thing.

Nicole: 12:09

Yeah.

Portia: 12:10

Did you ever go out of the country and, and hear that?

Nicole: 12:14

No. Only here in the United States. Out of the country. It's more sophisticated. They wouldn't dumb it down like that. And then they're drinking. They're drinking, different espressos and cappuccinos. And at certain times of their meal, having it come out and, I didn't learn any of that here.

Portia: 12:35

Speaking of Europe, you love this French Bistro in Atlanta, right?

Nicole: 12:40

Mm-hmm.

Portia: 12:41

What is it in downtown Atlanta. Where is this?

Nicole: 12:44

So there's, I believe there, there's two of them. One is in the Buckhead area, which in Atlanta, Buckhead is more exclusive than downtown.

Portia: 12:53

Okay. But what is the name of the French bistro that you go to that you always have the mixologist make you this coffee cocktail, which has to be different every time. So it's called Cafe Intermezzo. There's one in Buckhead, closer to Midtown, and then there's one in the perimeter area.

Nicole: 13:15

And Cafe Intermezzo was always my date spot. No, no man ever had been there. I was safe with that, like blowing somebody's mind by taking'em there or saying that's where we meet. Right? So, Including my husband, and I've been married almost one year. That was our first date.

Portia: 13:40

That's your go to.

Nicole: 13:46

It, it works, and I'm a creature of habit. I like things. When I find something that works,

Portia: 13:53

Mm-hmm.

Nicole: 13:53

It's hard to make me change. So Cafe Intermezzo is this French bistro, and they have sandwiches. And they have a glassed in pastry glass where you go, and you point to what you want, and then you go back to your seat and, they bring it to you. Then they have a bar that has, from all over the world, alcohol, wine, coffees and teas. And they will mix things. So, the very first time, it was just cold and we wanted to sit outside. You know how they have the gas heated lamps and all that?

Portia: 14:29

Yeah.

Nicole: 14:29

So I also was sleepy. So I knew I needed to drink some coffee.

Portia: 14:37

Yeah, you don't want yawn on this date.

Nicole: 14:39

I wanted a little nip too. You call it a lil nip. A lil nip. So I had this drink and it was like, okay, so it was coffee and it had Godiva liqour in it, and a cinnamon a stick.

Portia: 14:59

Ooh.

Nicole: 15:01

And it was good.

Portia: 15:03

Ooh. She said good.

Nicole: 15:04

Cause I never had anything like that. I've had Bailey's, I've had some Caramel liqour. Dolce de leche. Um, I'm naming things that I don't know what I'm talking about. I just remember them making coffee drinks for me like that. And I don't wanna learn. I don't wanna make it at home. I only wanna get that when I go there. I do know how to make cold coffee blended, like frothy, frappuccino things in the blender. But the warm things, you savor things from the place you love to get it from. And it's like blueberry pancakes. I never wanna make those. I always wanna eat those out at a restaurant. Wild Maine blueberry pancakes. I don't even trying it. And I love cooking. But there's a restaurant I go to to get those. So, that's how I am with my hot coffee drinks too.

Portia: 15:55

And your, your cocktails.

Nicole: 15:57

And my cocktails

Portia: 15:58

and your coffee cocktails.

Nicole: 15:59

My coffee cocktails.

Portia: 16:01

Nicole.

Nicole: 16:01

That's a thing. Coffee cocktails.

Portia: 16:04

It is a thing. You know, my thing is coffee and food pairing. And girl, I have to show you some recipes that one of my great friends, came up with, you know, just salmon, and then she adds, you know, all kinds of stuff and with this dish, but then she comes up with these cocktails, and sometimes, you know, they're hot and sometimes they're cold. But she's, she's so great at making it different. Adding a coffee that has a citrus note to it, to tacos or stuff like that. So is that what you do when you go into this French bistro? Do you ask them if they pair it with something? Do you ask them? Or you just say, make me something, and I wanna be wowed because it has to be great, first of all.

Nicole: 16:51

Yeah. Because when I go to this place, I'm always eating soup and a dessert. I've never gotten a, well, I won't say never, it's been years since I've gotten a sandwich there, cuz I'm plant-based now.

Portia: 17:04

Ah.

Nicole: 17:04

They have a, some fruit desserts that I like. My favorite dessert there is called Bosco. It's a dry pastry shell with fruit in it. It's all berries.

Portia: 17:16

Mm.

Nicole: 17:17

And then it has powdered sugar on it. So I have my soup first, and I'm usually drinking just water with my soup you know, I like to taste the soup. I'll go in there and pick the dessert, and that's when I'll have the warm, drink, whatever it is. And I never, think to tell the guy that I'm eating this. I never think to do that, but I should try that. The place is awesome. I, I don't know if they have in other cities, but when you go into the facilities in there. They have over t he intercom French language lessons that you're listening.

Portia: 17:54

Oh.

Nicole: 17:54

While you're freshening up in there. You hear them speaking in French and teaching you.

Portia: 18:00

Oh, that's pretty cool.

Nicole: 18:01

I always come out and say something to the person I'm with.

Portia: 18:06

Did you come out, when you were on the date with your future husband? Did you come out and say, Ooh, la la, la, la, whatever?

Nicole: 18:13

I don't know. I don't remember what I said, but I did.

Portia: 18:17

Well, it must have worked.

Nicole: 18:19

Right? I did that and it's so funny. I'm telling my secrets, but

Portia: 18:27

Girl, see, this is what it's about, about having fun. Look at you. Uhhuh. What else you got for me?

Nicole: 18:36

Also, with Intermezzo, you can sit near the dessert case, which I'll never do cuz I'll end up ordering three desserts, which I've done before. I've sat there and ordered three desserts, and no food and nothing to drink.

Portia: 18:50

Go on girl.

Nicole: 18:50

One of those days. I just told him I'm gonna start with dessert. And they're like, people do that here. And I said, I'm gonna end with dessert too.

Portia: 19:01

But, bring me a cocktail. Bring me something warm. Yeah. With a little coffee thing in there.

Nicole: 19:06

Yeah. And you know, I have told them what I felt like I was in the mood for, like something a little vanilla, I might say that. I might say not too sweet.

Portia: 19:17

Mm-hmm.

Nicole: 19:18

Cause it's dessert. You know, restaurants have brands of coffee and you don't really talk about that to the restaurant. They just asked you, do you want coffee? Like

Portia: 19:30

That is so true.

Nicole: 19:32

Is it Sanka? When you say Sanka, you gotta say,"Is it Sanka? Grand daddy drinks Sanka."

Portia: 19:46

Girl, you brought a name from the past.

Nicole: 19:49

That can. I'm probably gonna go there soon since we're talking about it. But, it's in this complex too with other restaurants and shopping plazas. So some people are just passing through, getting something to go to drink. But, they never were traditionally a grab and go coffee drink place. Cause that's what people wanna do. They want to sip coffee while they shop. And that was something that I learned also at Nordstrom. And now like I'm a customer at Nordstrom regularly. And I wanna do that when I go there. I wanna stop right at that espresso bar that's right at the beginning and get something warm and shop. And it makes people stay longer, cuz you really don't leave until you're done with your coffee. And I'm a sipper. Like I have a cousin that we shopped together. She freaking gulps her coffee. Like I don't even think she tasted it. And I'm like what you doing?

Portia: 20:46

You said, whatcha you doing a bottle of water? You made a great point because it's about the experience and when you go to Nordstrom's, you get your coffee, you walk around, you sip it. Because it's something comforting, warm, whatever you get from it, that is the whole experience. It's different for everybody, but the bottom line, it's your experience.

Nicole: 21:13

Exactly. So back to Nordstrom and these places that I worked, you know, I have in my studio. A K-Cup service for my clients. You know, they can fix it themselves, right? Mm-hmm. So this, this past week, I literally had a client that told me, she's like, I just want you to know you're out of your, um, Caramel Brulee coffee. You know how you have the little K-cup tower with all the cups in it?

Portia: 21:43

Yes. Yes.

Nicole: 21:44

And I just have random, like I have some boxes and I just random put'em in there. I really don't even look. When I'm closed on Monday, I just go through and fill it back in. I don't really pay attention cuz I don't drink those.

Portia: 21:56

Mm-hmm.

Nicole: 21:57

She told me, and I said, girl, lemme go and see if I have any. Got me a little coffee snob in here that likes the little Caramel Brulee. So that's what she likes, and I like to keep my client happy, but I learned that working for a company and they kept us happy with coffee and they kept the clients happy with coffee. And how can you become an entrepreneur, if you've never worked for someone? Where you used to work is how you learn how to run your business. If you didn't learn anything there, you worked there for nothing. It's like wherever you put in all of your time, you learn something.

Portia: 22:36

Oh my God. Speak the truth.

Nicole: 22:40

Right? Even they made you mad while you were learning it. You learned it. Cause I know I left, I finally left work and I said, I'm done. You know, working this 60 hours a week, I'm gonna be coming entrepreneur. So I can't work 24 hours a day. That's what I'm gonna do. And, but it feels good. And I learned, I learned a lot you know, with coffee. I, I even learned, I mean not learned. I grew up in those 23 years with my coffee, cuz my first coffee in Boston, it had everything in it. It had six packs of sugar, four creams. And if I could get them to get, cuz they charge you for more than two creams back then. They had to go cream, but they didn't charge you if you went over there and poured it. And, uh, so I went from that, and I moved, when I moved to Georgia, I met this model. This girl, she drank black coffee, and I never heard of such a thing. I was like that's gotta be disgusting. And, I'm over there loading up my coffee like all the other models cuz we're on sugar. You know, not just even knew how to gain weight yet. We, that, that net hadn't happened yet. and, um, sugar. That's it. You know, so, and I would have coffee and potato chips.

Portia: 24:16

Oh girl. All right.

Nicole: 24:18

Sweet and salty or whatever it was.

Portia: 24:20

Mm-hmm.

Nicole: 24:20

I dunno what it was, but now I know they're dip. There is a coffee flavored potato chip. You know how, what company is that Lays?

Portia: 24:27

Lays.

Nicole: 24:28

That has the competitions all the time?

Portia: 24:29

Yes.

Nicole: 24:30

We never tasted it, but I knew they had one.

Portia: 24:33

Ooh, I gotta try that. I wonder.

Nicole: 24:34

No, cause you don't know where to find it because when they have those, they're just in certain cities.

Portia: 24:39

Mm-hmm.

Nicole: 24:40

When we would travel and stop and rest stops, we would stop or not Rest stops. Gas stations?

Portia: 24:44

Mm-hmm.

Nicole: 24:45

We would stop and see what that city had, what kind of Lays they had to offer.

Portia: 24:50

Stop it.

Nicole: 24:51

They're not everywhere. Yeah. Now back then, it was basic. Like we couldn't find sour cream and onion Lays everywhere. We couldn't find it in the green bag?

Portia: 25:02

Yeah, that's basic.

Nicole: 25:04

We couldn't find it.

Portia: 25:05

That's just like barbecue.

Nicole: 25:07

Not the eighties.

Portia: 25:08

So wait a minute. Tell me about this model when you came to Atlanta, and she was drinking, uh, black coffee and she looked like she had three heads to you.

Nicole: 25:21

I said, girl, your breath. You know, as if mine was any better cuz I put sugar and cream in it cuz now I got the dairy on my tongue, you gotta scrape off and you know the, the side of insulin I'm gonna need with by the time I'm done. So she said, girl, she's like, why are you still doing that to your coffee? She said, That's where all the calories are. So this is a model who had started counting calories and nobody likes that when you're still skinny. Nobody likes that until whenever you get that age where you're like, dang, something's happening. I wasn't there yet. So I wasn't trying to hear any model telling me not to eat pizza, not to eat burgers. My two big Macs, I used to eat.

Portia: 26:13

No stop. You use to eat two Big Macs?

Nicole: 26:15

Two big, big Macs and a vanilla shake. No fries. I would not take out the middle piece of bread cuz that's what models did when they ordered Big Macs. They would take the middle piece of bread out. I was like ya'll are so stupid. That's how you feel up. I'm eating my six pieces of bread. So, I was late bloomer. I didn't start gaining weight until I turned 35. That's when I started gaining weight.

Portia: 26:43

Oh, bless you.

Nicole: 26:44

That's when, that's my saying, RT met LT.

Portia: 26:50

RT. What is, what is that?

Nicole: 26:53

Left thigh met right thigh. They introduced themselves, and I didn't know what was happening. I was like walking and I was like, what the, and that's when I learned it. I'm drinking my calories. So coffee drinkers... And I had people saying, you're drinking your calories. You drink all these smoothies that they've got sugar in them. You put all that crap in your coffee. This girl told me I drank crappuccinos, and I was like, you know you're on to something cause I haven't even eaten today, and I'm full.

Portia: 27:55

That had nothing to do with the taste of the coffee. It was all about how much calories you were putting in your body as a model. Girl, that's something.

Nicole: 28:04

If you keep yourself up, cuz you know, models are all in their fifties now because it's more of a, who's actually buying this stuff. So, you better appeal to them, instead of putting some 14 year old in a$5,000 Versace shoot suit and the lady over here who's buying it, is like, that's like my granddaughter in that suit on the runway. So they, they've gotten a little smarter with that. But my coffee, you know, I graduated. And, I actually tried coffee without sugar, at this girl's request. And she said, don't just try it cold turkey, black cuz you're not gonna like it. And she told me she had to graduate to black.

Portia: 28:49

Okay.

Nicole: 28:50

But she also told me that someday you'll probably like dark chocolate and red wine. And I was like, ew, but of course, I eat nothing but dark chocolate. The darker the better. I can do 80% just straight. Yes, it's delicious.

Portia: 29:08

Look at you salivating.

Nicole: 29:09

Oh good. With some little slice. And of course I eat plant-based cheese, but some little slice of cheese. Cause I have a plate that I make. We can call it a board, but I'll have a couple of pieces of chocolate on it cuz I'll buy those bars where you break the squares off. Mm-hmm. It might take me a to eat it cuz I'll just eat two squares at a time. I'll handle some red grapes and I'll have um, some plant-based cheddar cheese sliced with it, and it's just so good and some crackers and it's just like a little grazing board, you know, that I'll make and graze past that.

Portia: 29:49

And you said graze

Nicole: 29:50

A little grazing board. Cause I'm a grazer. You know, today.

Portia: 29:56

I'm sorry, but you know, I gotta. I'm not calling you a cow at all, but you know, when you said graze.

Nicole: 30:01

That's what it is.

Portia: 30:06

You be grazing.

Nicole: 30:07

I don't even care. That's what it's, you know, it's not a board, but it's just on a plate.

Portia: 30:13

Hey, this ladies and gentlemen, this is a mature woman being real. You got to love it, okay?

Nicole: 30:18

And it'll keep you outta that snacking bag, if you just put a portion of these things on a plate and that's all you get today. Otherwise I really can eat three pounds of grapes in one day, and that's too much sugar. It's good, but it's bad.

Portia: 30:34

Well, you stay tuned because I'm gonna have something for you with what kind of coffee you pair with your dark chocolate. I'll present that to you all in another episode cause like I have something special for you guys, but later. But yeah.

Nicole: 30:49

Okay, so now, at the tender age of 56 in two weeks, I drink just my regular, correct me if I'm saying it wrong, Arabica bean, black coffee. it is two tablespoons of maple oat milk in it. That's it. And, it's good.

Portia: 31:12

Well, I can't lie I tell everybody this story, but I started off coffee with, it was black and I added lemon juice.

Nicole: 31:20

Oh.

Portia: 31:21

And sugar.

Nicole: 31:24

You get a jolt from coffee or is it just like a relaxing.

Portia: 31:29

No jolt, but as you said, it's very comforting, and it's like a, a warm blanket.

Nicole: 31:35

Yeah.

Portia: 31:35

I can drink it all throughout the whole day, but it is nothing like that first cup, first of all, you gotta admit it is nothing like that first sip.

Nicole: 31:45

That's everything. You like, you can see there's memes where people are like, I go to bed at night just so I can dream of my cup of coffee in the morning. That's what I think about at bedtime. I get to get up and have coffee.

Portia: 32:03

For real. Yes, there have been times when I have fallen asleep or gotten in the bed thinking, damn, I can't wait until the morning. It's crazy. I know. Well, Who knew the fashion industry, the makeup industry, all of this combined with coffee. Who knew that it could be such an interesting topic. But see, this is what this is about. Just all walks of life. And you, Nicole, I swear you are something else. You're hilarious.

Nicole: 32:34

Thank you.

Portia: 32:35

Thank you so much. Oh my goodness. This is such a treat. Many, many blessings to you. Much success. Talk to you later. You are so welcome. Bye.

Nicole: 32:47

Okay. Byebye.

Portia: 32:50

I'm Portia White, and I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation. I'd like to give a special thanks to our sponsor, betterwithacupofcoffee.com. If you like what you heard, please rate and review our podcast and join us again soon at Cuppa Connections.