why you *should* ask people about their favorite color 🎨

💖🍒💋🌹 february books open tomorrow! 💌🌸🎀🍷

“You sure you want that color?” My mom asked, surrounded by about 100 different paint chips from Home Depot, swirling in decision fatigue thanks to our current home renovation. (About 70 of them were all various shades of white.)

“Yeah mom,” I said confidently, my finger over a shade of dark brown. “It’s called chocolate truffle.”

The year was 2010, and every bakery and cupcake store was swarming the nation with its never-been-done-before hot pink & chocolate brown aesthetic. I was hooked. The vision was set. I may not have been able to decorate my own bakery at age 10, but I’d be dammed if I didn’t make my four walls feel as close to one as possible.

Enter: Chocolate truffle walls. Magenta shag rug. Pink dot wall decals. Target duvet with pink circles and chocolate syrup swirls. (!!!) Matching HOT hot pink vinyl chairs. Etc. Etc. (Extreme Makeover Home Edition would have loved me.)

Despite the often-fleeting passions and color choices of children, (raise your hand if you painted your childhood bedroom during covid because there was *no* way you were having NEON GREEN walls as your Zoom background) I’m happy to report that I LOVED the brown walls. They lasted until my junior year of high school, only after I decided white walls would work better with the aesthetic of my bookstagram lol.

The particular brown backdrop came and went, just as the cupcake craze did. But pink—specifically magenta/red? Oh she has never left.

I always have been, in more ways than one, a fiery red gal.

Exhibit A: I was pretty. . .*ahem* . . . feisty as a kid. I wasn’t mean, just very clear on what I wanted and what I didn’t. . . and would make that clear to everyone around me. My mom described me as a “CEO in a toddler’s body.” (and even helps encourage parents to this day with my success story of toddler CEO to actual CEO haha) An infamous child Emily quote in our family is as follows: “Why does red always have to mean stop? Why can’t red mean go? *disappointed little kid face* 😔”

Exhibit B: My red & pink 9th birthday ‘fit at the American Girl Doll café. (truly immaculate vibes)

Exhibit C: I made a smoothie today and made sure to add a hefty serving of dragonfruit. You might think, Ooh is she a superfruit gal? So healthy! So mindful!

Yeahhh no, I just like it because it turns the smoothie pink :-)

Exhibit D: Rockin’ with the pink glasses & beanie from 2009 to 2025 💅🏻

peep the magenta phone case

I was recently reading my friend Calista’s Substack of her age-old love affair with her favorite color (purple), where she said,

“there are those who see their favorite color as as an arbitrary question and those who see it as a talisman, a good-luck charm, a way of seeing and being. i’m the latter, obviously.

…maybe it is an arbitrary line on a list of surface-level get-to-know-you-questions, but it’s also one of the longest relationships i’ll ever be in. isn’t that worth something?”

Color, like many aesthetic choices, lives and breaths with you. It can be a time capsule of your own life, as well as a sign of the times.

For example: what does this color palette make you think of?

If you didn’t scream 2010 Pinterest chevron wedding…what’s good.

As someone whose job is to reflect people’s lives back to them, color is a HUGE part of how I do that.

You may have heard of color psychology and how colors evoke emotion (often used by brands when selecting a brand color), but I’m interested in the color psychology of you. Do you gravitate to an olive green or a sage green? Avocado green or lime green? Forrest or emerald? The choices are subtle but say so much; they make up the palette and tone of who you are!

That’s why…

• I can pick up a vibe for someone’s cookies based on a screen shot of their Instagram.

• You can look at these 3 colors and know exactly what musical artists they represent.

• My friend Alissa used the colors she gravitated to IRL to pick her brand colors.

• I told my friend “I need to make cookies for you” after seeing her house & the colors & aesthetic she fills it with.

• Every friend’s contact photo in my phone is a color that matches them :’)

So, here’s my case for genuinely asking “what’s your favorite color?” the next time you meet someone. Maybe you’ll stop in your tracks the next time you see something *insert favorite color here* at a cute gift shop and think of them ;)

I could truly talk about color for hours (and had a billion of color-related anecdotes that didn’t make this newsletter that will probably find their way into another one) so comment on this Substack and tell me about *your* favorite color! 🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜

february books open tomorrow!

Alright, what you’ve all been waiting for! February books will open tomorrow, January 28th at 6:00 PM CST—you’ll get another email from Substack with the link to the order form. 🥳

And WOW y’all are in luck because for the first time in like. . .maybe a year?? I have availability for every weekend in February! Which means:

I will be taking orders for:

• February 7 & 8th

• February 14 & 15th

• February 21 & 22nd

• February 28th & March 1st

I am still a one woman show, so I won’t be able to take every order that comes through. But I’m so looking forward to baking for as many of y’all as I can this coming month.

See y’all tomorrow!

-Cookie <3