Becoming a Cover Model, Traveling the World & Best Filipino Food I Desiree Schlotz DSH #439

During that time, my social media wasn't, I had like maybe 30,000 followers.

I was just kind of posting all the stuff that I was getting gifted, try and get like recognized by these Instagram brands.

I actually got offered this brand deal from Ignite.

I'm like, how could I say no to this?

I have to say yes.

Like six months after I was working with them, they offered me to go travel with them and kind of be like the face of the brand.

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All right guys, we're here with Desi Schlotz here today.

Second podcast ever.

Yes, second one ever.

Thanks for coming on.

It's an honor.

Yes, thanks for having me.

I'm honored.

What?

Absolutely.

First thing I noticed about you was your smile.

Oh, thank you so much.

Whitest teeth I've ever seen, I think.

Yeah, they're veneers, so they're fake.

Still counts.

Yeah, I got them done in Dubai.

That was like the first thing that I wanted to do cosmetic-wise when I started making money.

I was like, I need to get my teeth done.

My teeth weren't that bad, but I was like, I wanted that Hollywood smile.

I feel that I had some cavities growing up, man.

Me too.

Yeah.

There's that oil pulling thing that's not going on.

You do that?

Have you noticed like a difference?

Oh, yeah.

My first five episodes, my teeth were yellow as f ⁇ ing way.

They're still decently yellow, but like definitely way better.

Wow.

I'm like, I don't know if I can do it with veneers because I have composite veneers, so they're not uh or sorry ceramic they're not um porcelain oh so they're not your real teeth yeah so i still have all my real teeth underneath yeah they're not like shark teeth oh so they didn't shave it thank god i was like i did not want that and i didn't even know there was other options for like veneers

so that was the route that i decided to take so if i have a tooth pop out i still have my teeth underneath wait i didn't know that because i just assumed they shave it but i didn't know there was other options yeah they shaved like the first layer of my teeth um when i went to get like moldings of them and then the second week i went back and then it took like an hour to get done yeah so quick cost me like four thousand dollars too

here in la it's like fifty grand for porcelain veneers which is insane like mine look better than a lot of the porcelain ones

i think yachty paid 80 100k oh my god that's crazy yeah that's a lot on teeth what was the next procedure after that one oh um

definitely filler.

I was getting a lot of Botox and filler.

And yeah, that's it.

Nothing really else.

Nothing crazy.

People have been going hard on the Botox lately, I noticed.

Yeah, start while you're young, honestly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, truly.

Like, if you start when you're like 20, it's so preventative for wrinkles.

Because when wrinkles start forming, you can't really get rid of the wrinkles that have already formed.

So the like earlier you, the earlier you start, the better because it just prevents wrinkles from happening.

Wow.

And it also helps migraines.

Like if you suffer from migraines, it freezes your nerves in there so you don't have as bad migraines.

Interesting.

Yeah.

What?

Yeah.

I never knew that.

Yeah.

Actually, somebody told me that when I was working at Bank of America, this lady came in.

She was like, I just got my Botox today.

I was like, oh, great.

She was like this 65-year-old lady.

And I was like, that's amazing.

And she was like, yeah, I suffer from migraines.

It's not for like cosmetics.

I was like, right.

That is interesting.

Working at Bank of America, that sounds like a whole different life than what you're living now.

Oh my gosh.

That was just like a different Desiree.

Like that was just crazy.

I started working at Bank of America when I was, I think, 19.

I had just graduated high school.

No, sorry.

This was my second year being out of high school and I was going to community college.

All my friends were going to universities.

I literally had like the worst grades, so I couldn't get into any like university.

Like I could only get into community college.

And like school wasn't really my vibe.

Like I was more of a creative, I would say.

But yeah, so my parents ended up moving away.

So I was living alone in Minnesota

when I was like 19 and I needed to find a full-time job to pay for my bills.

So that's where I got a job at.

And I worked there for three years as a bank teller.

And

I decided to quit all of that and drop out of school and move to LA to pursue modeling, which was just

a very big decision and a decision my family was not that supportive of.

But here we are.

Yeah.

I mean, from their point of view, they probably thought it was risky.

Modeling is tough industry, right?

You got to be at the top or pretty much no money in it.

Exactly.

And coming to LA, I was like, okay, you know, I have experience in modeling.

I started when I was 15.

I had been with a few agencies and I was like, okay, I got this.

You know, like, I think I'm pretty pretty well connected over there.

Like, I'd been traveling back and forth and just shooting with photographers, meeting people, getting connected.

And then I moved over here and I was like, oh, this is a very rude awakening.

I was like, this is not

what I expected.

It was very hard to make money.

I even tried to apply to some bank jobs here in LA, but they would not take me, even with the experience that I had.

Like, you need a bachelor's degree.

To be a bank teller?

Yeah, to even be a bank teller.

And maybe just because I was applying to some of like really big corporate bank places, but

it's still weird because you're just counting money and not doing anything crazy.

Oh my god, I know.

I had to do six months of training before they even put me on the floor.

Wow.

Yeah.

And funny because like I'm not, I wasn't really the best in school.

Like my family all went to college.

My brother is a personal math tutor.

So he teaches math from grades like one all the way up to college.

Dang.

And I'm like, how am I the bank teller?

I'm dealing with the money, but I can count.

Wow.

So getting that first modeling gig, how long did that take when you moved to LA?

Oh, it took a while.

So I moved to LA when I was like 20, turning 21.

And then

like I was like freelancing for a while.

And then eventually after that, I was like, okay, I need to actually make money and like

get some sort of consistent income.

So I put the whole modeling thing on holds for a little bit and then I got a job at Sephora and I was working at Sephora as a freelance makeup artist.

Or sorry, just as a makeup artist.

And then I did freelancing after that.

And that's kind of how I got connected in the whole industry.

I was meeting a lot of people who walked through there.

And then during that time, my social media wasn't, I had like maybe 30,000 followers.

And then I was just kind of posting all the stuff that I was getting gifted to just try and get like recognized by these Instagram brands like Fashion Nova or like Tiger Mist,

O Poly.

And from there, I actually got offered this brand deal from Ignite

for,

I think it was $3,000 a month to post like four times a month.

And I was like, this is the most amount of money I have ever made.

Like, this is crazy.

I'm like, how could I say no to this?

I have to say yes.

This is, this will pay my rent and then some.

Right.

And yeah, so I did that for about six months.

I was working on contract with Ignite

and they,

it was great.

Then they offered me travel.

Like six months after I was working with them, they offered me to go travel with them and kind of be like the face of the brand.

Wow.

Yeah.

Shout out to Dan Bazarian.

Shout out to Dan.

Hooked it up.

Shout out to Dan, Dan.

How legendary were those Ignite parties?

They were crazy.

They were highlight of my young 20s.

You finally got that experience because all your friends went to college, but you didn't get it.

Right.

I was like, now I get to go and experience traveling the world, but like with a billionaire.

Yeah.

So it was quite the experience.

There was a lot of drama, like a lot of drama.

All the girls fighting for him.

Yeah, just fighting for him, fighting for his attention.

And like, who's going to be the chosen one?

Who's getting voted off the island this week?

Is kind of what it was.

Yeah, it was like Love Island, but in Love Island, but with like Dan.

Yeah, and he probably just doesn't even give a shit, honestly.

No, I mean, he does, but not so much about the girls.

I mean, he does, but not like you would think.

He's like, This is my life, you know.

You can come and hang out and have fun.

I don't need the drama.

If you cause drama, you're out.

Yeah.

Or if, or if you're ugly, you're out.

That's what he would say.

He's done a total 180.

He's like living in Vegas now, pretty much alone.

I think he's dating, even.

Yeah, which is crazy.

Which is weird, yeah.

Which is so weird.

I never thought he would be like monogamous.

Never.

Yeah.

I mean, he was known for just being damn bazarian.

Yeah.

But you know, we all get older.

We all get fed up.

Yeah.

At some point.

What were your favorite spots to travel?

I've saw your Instagram.

You've been to some beautiful spots.

Oh, yeah.

I've traveled a lot.

And thanks to Ignite, honestly, because that's really what ignited my traveling.

I went to Iceland with Ignite.

We went to Italy.

Iceland was probably my favorite place.

We also went to India.

We went to Mumbai.

That sounds that was crazy.

Yeah, that was quite the experience.

And when you're traveling with him, it's not like your normal traveling.

There's paparazzi people following, taking photos of you.

Even in other countries?

Especially in India.

It was

crazy.

It's so random.

Yeah.

We had to have like 20 security guards with us at all times when we were in India.

It's just the

people there love him.

Dude, I never would have guessed that with him.

Yeah.

Like, I feel like his audience is all like white dudes, but shout out to India.

Shout out to India.

That's crazy.

I actually want to go there.

How was the food there?

That's what I want to know.

Okay,

so,

you know, I got really sick when I ate the food.

I got sick immediately within the first five days.

And we were staying at like one of the nicest hotels.

I'm not really a fan of Indian food in general, but maybe I just haven't had the right Indian food.

I mean, I went to India, so I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm just trying to give it.

Dang, that's disappointing here because I love Indian.

Where do you go for Indian food?

I live in Vegas.

Oh, okay.

There's a couple of spots there, but I love all types of cuisines, honestly.

Like, food is in my top three.

Because, like, the Indian food we had is like the real authentic Indian food compared to like London, where they have really good Indian food, but it's, I don't know if it's like real off.

I mean, it probably is, but like chicken tikka masala.

That's what I get, yeah.

Yeah, that's number one favorite.

Yeah, that's what I heard about the Chinese food out here.

It's like super Americanized.

Yeah, I mean, you would know, right?

I've been to China, yeah, I was like 10, but I don't know.

Food for me, when I'm traveling, that's like the most important thing, honestly.

Me too.

I base my vacations off food, but I eat pretty gnarly

because I'm not Filipino.

Yeah, okay, so you know.

I'm like, but Indian food, I don't know.

I'm not a fan of curry in general, so maybe that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, that's like 80% of yeah, but I haven't really tried much else of their cuisine.

So what are some crazy things you've eaten?

Oh, so I I was just in the Philippines recently, this last September or this past September, and I brought my friend Jess with me.

And she doesn't really eat.

She has a good palate, but she doesn't really go beyond her palate.

Every morning, my family would make us dried squid and dried fish.

And there was this dish called bagung.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right.

I think it's called bagung and it's sour mango with a shrimp paste.

They're like pink little shrimps, and it's like in a paste, and you dip the mango in it.

And I was eating that like every morning.

It is so good.

It's very, it's very like, it's a very salty, savory kind of

a hint of sweet because there's brown sugar in it.

I would devour that.

I love dried squid.

You do?

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

I don't think I've ever met anybody who likes dried squid.

I tried to get my boyfriend to try it once, and he was,

he was just repulsed.

No, it's fire.

I go to the Asian markets and buy that shit.

I literally was just eating it right before we came here.

So good.

I mean, I like all types of squid.

Squid's one of my favorite, actually.

Just jump.

Wow.

But Filipino food, I don't know if I've dabbled much with it, to be honest.

I got to get more into it.

Yeah, there's actually a Michelin Star Filipino restaurant here in LA.

I don't know the name.

I have to search it up, but it has a Michelin star and it's.

I heard it's really, really good.

So that's on my list of places to go.

Interesting.

Yeah, your whole family's from there, right?

Philippines?

No, my dad's actually from Missouri.

Oh,

Missouri.

He's white.

He is mostly like German-Irish.

So I actually have some Irish with me too.

Yeah.

And my mom moved to the Philippines when she, or moved to America from the Philippines when she was 20.

And they met when she was like 22.

So immediately after she moved here, then my parents like got together.

What a mix.

Yeah.

And then my brother's Korean.

Wait, what?

So my dad just obviously had a thing for Asians.

Oh, it's a stepbrother.

Okay.

My half-brother.

Half-brother, yeah.

Yeah.

He was married previously before my mom.

So got it.

So my mom pretty much raised my brother, though, because

his mom was out of the picture when he was like two.

Oh, so he's pretty much your real brother.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I got two half brothers.

They're actually half Filipino.

No way.

Yeah.

Oh, and you've never had Filipino food?

I think, I don't remember.

If you name some dishes, maybe a jolly.

Chinadobo.

No.

I've heard of it, but no.

That's like the classic.

Wait, is jalabi?

Yes.

That's Filipino?

Okay, I've had jalabi.

I don't know if that counts, but.

That counts.

It's like fast food, Filipino food.

I've had the lumpia rolls.

Yes.

And the rice, I think, or something.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll dabble with it more.

I like trying new cuisines.

Do you like soup or stews?

I love pho.

I love popping.

Okay, yeah.

Then you'll like sinagong, which is either a pork, fish, or...

beef-based stew and it just has a lot of vegetables in it and it has this sour kind of taste to it.

It's really good.

This is so funny.

I didn't think we'd be talking about food on that.

I didn't either, but you seem like a foodie.

I'm a huge foodie.

Huge.

Yeah.

Do you have the app on the house?

Yes.

Dude, I love that app.

I love that app too.

It saves me so much money.

Foxhall Steakhouse.

Have you been there yet?

Oh my God.

That's really good.

It's really good.

Yeah, that app has just elevated my life.

That app is crazy.

Like, that's kind of where we're going

with everything.

5K a week.

Are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest?

We'll click the the application link below in the description of this video.

We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life.

Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys.

I didn't use my balance for like four weeks in a row.

I don't even know.

Oh, it stacks?

Yeah, I somehow like had a $100,000 balance when I opened it up once and I was like, is this real life?

I didn't know it was stacked.

Shortly after that, like the app like glitched or something and I got kicked off of it and I was like, oh, well, I don't know if I did something wrong.

It was just like a glitch, but then it came back.

And then my balance went back to just 4,000.

So it's still good.

I used to, before that app, I had my assistant just literally DM or email places and make two reservations a week for me.

Amazing.

And the cool part about having a following is they comp the meal.

Yeah.

So it literally saved me.

I did the math.

It saved me 80 G's.

Would you have to like post?

Yeah, just a story though, which I do anyways.

Exactly.

Because I'm a foodie.

So it's like a win-win.

That's what me and like when I was traveling this past summer, we actually got a lot of collaborations with hotels.

I got a collaboration with this hotel in Switzerland, this hotel in Tuscany, and also in Greece.

Wow.

Yeah, which was really cool.

And, you know, they comped all of our food, which was amazing.

But we're going to create content anyways.

So

you might as well maximize your.

connections while you can.

Yeah, I learned that from Kinsey because she travels the world for free.

We love Kinsey.

Exactly.

And she has her assistant email 50 spots the week before or whatever and three three to five of them respond.

And then you just pick.

Yeah.

It's pretty incredible.

I mean, travel is expensive, especially like five four-star hotels.

That's what I'm doing right now, actually.

I'm working on a blog because I actually do some photography and I'm trying to like expand that a little bit more and do travel photography.

So literally like yesterday, I sent about 25 emails to different hotels just kind of with my proposal and media kit.

And I'm just manifesting that I hit like at least five of them.

Oh, you will.

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, I'm really, really manifesting that.

Cause I did.

I was able to get three last summer, which was really cool.

Yeah.

It's just a numbers game.

Yeah.

And for them, it's a win, because especially if you're going during offseason,

those rooms aren't filled.

Exactly.

So they're just going to give you a room, which didn't cost them anything to begin with.

But a lot of times I've noticed is they...

don't even really care about your following at times unless you're like creating good content is what i've kind of noticed

you know a lot of uh the creators that i see that are creating content for these resorts have like 50 000 followers and they're getting paid like thousands of dollars yeah that's like how is that

Give me the sauce.

Like tell me what you're doing.

Yeah, some of them do favor the scenic, really high quality like camera shots rather than iPhone, which is what I do.

Yeah.

I mean, I do, I try to do both.

I'm trying to do the whole photography thing, but it's hard.

Respect to my photographers.

I feel that.

That's cool to see you expanding, though, because I know you're big in the modeling space.

You were on the cover of Glamour and El Aficiale, right?

Which was so cool.

It was one of my goals in life was to be on the cover of any magazine ever since I was a young girl.

So to be on two really big ones, you know, talking about Celestial Swim was just...

Out of this world.

My mom was so proud of me.

This was when they were actually like proud of me.

You know, they started to support me once they were like, oh,

it took some time and it took some convincing.

took a magazine cover from the movie show yeah it took took like eight magazine covers

yeah i'm an eight-time cover girl wow so they played hard to get for a bit yeah they did but they're very supportive now so yeah similar with my mom yeah she was because i dropped out of college and you did yeah you know how it is with asian parents so like my mom was pissed of course we have to rebel like of course they want us to go to college but of course we're not gonna

It's a different era, right?

It is.

It's a different era.

Now, when I have kids and they want to drop out, I won't even care, honestly.

Yeah,

I think with technology and everything, and the way that we're evolving, like if you're utilizing your resources correctly, you don't necessarily need to go to college.

I think school and education, like the framework of it, is something we can implement into our everyday lives, which is really useful.

But as far as knowledge, like we have the knowledge in our hands at our phones at all times.

It's right there.

It's literally right there.

We don't need books anymore.

And like, that's how I learned how how to do photography i'm like watched a bunch of videos even starting a business googled the first thing i google google searched was how to start a brand yeah and celestial swims crushing it now right yeah it is it's been

crazy ride i did not realize how much work it was gonna be i mean i did but oh it's a lot of work running a business and i don't have any employees at the moment so it's just me just me self-funding it and running everything on my own.

I'm in the middle of like looking for a marketing agency to bring on.

Yeah, those are tough to find.

Those are tough.

The incentives aren't aligned.

Yeah.

So they want to charge you monthly plus percentage of ad spend.

So it's crazy.

I was currently like looking for somebody to do our email and text marketing.

And literally what I did was I spent a whole day and I just sat on YouTube and watched how to, you know, do, how to implement Clavio into your Shopify.

And I'm really good with Canva because I like to design stuff as it is.

And I just did it myself.

I was like,

we have the tools and resources to learn literally anything.

And if you don't have the budget to like spend on, you know, a marketing agency that is thousands of dollars, which I did not realize until I started a month, especially when you're, you're not even profitable yet.

You're not even making money.

You're like, they don't care.

They don't give a f.

They're like, and pay up.

So it's really, I was just literally reflecting on this the other day of just how grateful I am that we have YouTube and that we have TikTok to learn things like this.

Like

this is crazy.

YouTube University, baby.

I mean, that was better than college.

Pick me up.

Let me be a professor.

I mean, there's so many podcasts and YouTube videos I watch that I'm learning more than I did in a day than like 10 years of school.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It's crazy.

I'm even trying to learn more about film photography, like film, how to to use film photos.

I'm so interested in that.

We shoot a lot of our campaigns for Celestial on film.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I don't.

So I hire somebody,

but I do model for my brand, which is really fun.

And it's fun to be the creative director for it.

Absolutely.

I just saw you in the LA Times also.

Oh, my God.

That was so nerve-wracking.

How come?

Was it a live interview?

It was, they came to my house and I knew this was like my biggest publication that I was going to get.

And it was the number one thing talked about at Christmas dinner.

And I had to explain to everybody what I did for a living.

Oh, they didn't know.

Like some of them did, but then a lot of them were like, so how are you a millionaire?

Like, oh, well, this is how I am a millionaire.

Wow.

But it was great.

I loved the interviewee person who did my interview.

And the guy who came over and took my shots was amazing and he made me feel so comfortable.

And they just took photos of my house.

It was really cool.

It was so surreal.

I never would have imagined that I would be in LA Times.

That's nuts.

Yeah.

Like CoverGirl, definitely.

Huge goal of mine.

LA Times,

whoo, that is like a bonus.

That triumphs the cover?

Oh my God.

Yeah.

Damn.

Because, you know,

everybody's reading the LA Times.

There's only a specific targeted audience, I feel like, that watch or that reads magazines.

Yeah.

Not everybody does, but LA Times is, you know, that's news.

All of LA.

There's like, what, three, four million people here?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

Yeah, it was crazy.

What was that moment like becoming a millionaire?

Do you remember it?

Hitting my first million was so surreal.

I was in shock because I was like, where'd all the money go?

Taxes.

I'm a millionaire, but where's my million dollars?

It's not in my bank account, which is, I wish somebody would have told me and taught me, you know, how to manage money when you start making it.

That was a rude awakening for me.

It was, you know, really learning how to invest my money correctly and what to do with it.

And, you know, starting a business was a start.

That's the first step was doing something, you know, useful with my money.

But I'm still learning on a day-to-day basis.

You know, it's, it's tough.

And it's a very male-dominated industry and it's very intimidating.

Yeah.

all the guys are the ones running shit behind the scenes, right?

Yeah, and you just never know who's gonna take advantage of you because you start making money.

And, you know,

being a woman, I'm pretty and I'm cute, so I definitely have the advantage of that.

But wow, it is just being an entrepreneur, being

you know, self-made is

a lot of work.

I actually heard this quote from

the artist Pitbull, and he said, spiritual, or no, he said, if you live in a world of instant gratification, entrepreneurship

is not for you.

It's not for you.

And he also goes on to say that

hustling and entrepreneurship is a slow, but for show.

Because what comes quick is going to leave quicker.

Yep, too many people chasing fast money out here because of social media.

It's so true.

We are, you know, constantly getting this instant gratification through social media as well.

And I think a lot of people, when they get into entrepreneurship, kind of expect that.

Me being one of them too, like me having a following, I was like, okay, I kind of have leverage starting this business because I have followers.

I'm like, this could definitely help and, you know, make sales.

That only goes so far.

There's no shortcuts around.

being, you know, having a successful business.

It's really just time and consistent effort and consistency and work, hard work that you put in, you'll get back out.

Absolutely.

It's actually crazy with the followers thing.

People just assume you have money.

Oh my God.

It's nuts.

We actually live in a world where you could have 10 million followers and have no money.

No money.

No money.

I actually know quite a few people.

I know people that are like that.

So actually people with followers, most of them don't have money.

I know.

Like 80%.

That just shows though how much we're not getting paid for content creation.

well i think they just see the followers and they assume like you could just sell stuff to them yeah but not everyone has that connection with their audience you know what i mean true and with tick tock too it's like the algorithm they want you to like you know keep posting and posting and posting and then you have a video that goes viral and then the algorithm the way it works is what i heard is that your next few videos won't go as viral so that you're like addicted to just keep posting and posting until you get that high again yeah until that one that next video goes viral and it's just this constant cycle until you like if you're trying to build your following if you already have a following it's a little bit different but yeah no they incentivize the consistent posting and then you could get lost in the sauce and then what they're doing with tick tock shop i just scroll past every video that says like eligible for commission i'm like

But I guess they're pushing those videos out.

I don't know.

Some people are crushing it with TikTok Shop, actually.

Really?

Yeah.

You should get your swim stuff on there.

I know.

We should.

I just need a team for that to help me.

Yeah.

No, you need a whole team because then you got to send it out to hundreds of influencers.

It's definitely a whole process, but I know some people doing six figures a day off TikTok shop.

Wow.

That's amazing.

That's pretty nuts because they're pushing it so hard right now and they're eating a lot of loss.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And they're giving discounts too.

Yeah.

So they'll give 40% off and they'll actually pay the business the difference.

Wow.

When they get an order.

Oh, damn.

Maybe I should get on there.

Yeah, look into that.

Well, it's been fun.

What's next for you you and where can people find you?

You can find me at Desiree Schlotz on Instagram and TikTok.

And if you want to get a little freaky, you can find me on OnlyFans at Desiree Schlotz too.

What's next for me?

What I would say is I'm really focusing on

my travel blog.

I've been really putting a lot of time and effort into that.

I really want to travel more and create travel content.

And yeah.

Awesome.

Well, we'll link all that in the video, guys.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

See you tomorrow.

Bye.