Glow-Up: The Photos and Bio That Changed My Inbox

I’m not so proud to admit that I assumed that all the guys on sugar dating platforms were, well, easy to impress. Okay, I’ll say it: I thought they were kind of dumb.

And, in my defense, I myself was young and kind of dumb. When I first made my profile, I was 24 years old, had just run a marathon, got picked up constantly in clubs and in my daily life, and felt confident that I could land just about any guy. I honestly assumed that all I would have to do to get a sugar daddy would be to create a profile with one or two pictures, and my inbox would be flooded.

That’s, as you probably guessed, not what happened. In fact, it was crickets for weeks. Sometimes I would even reach out first to a guy, and he would ghost me after two or three messages. I did the lazy thing and blamed the platform. “Surely,” my young, beautiful self said in the mirror, “it’s not my problem. All of these sugar daddy profiles must be fake.”

But I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. I found an online forum of sugar babies and started posing questions about why I wasn’t getting any attention. One of the users on the message boards asked if I would be comfortable sharing my profile with her so that she could take a look and give me some feedback.

When I tell you, this girl, this saint of a girl’s girl, ripped my profile apart line-by-line. And, when I made the changes she suggested, it worked. I started getting more consistent messages and actual plans to schedule dates. I never got that girl’s real name, but I have her to thank for the past 6 successful years of sugar dating. And, here are a few of the suggestions that changed everything:

The photos

The first problem that was highlighted about my profile was my pictures. I remember not wanting to use the same photos that I had on my social media because I didn’t want someone to be able to reverse image search and find my Instagram or Facebook. But, instead of taking unique photos for my sugar dating profile, I did the lazy thing and used super old photos of me that I had never uploaded anywhere. You know, the selfie rejects that were slightly blurry and off-center. I also tended to put filters over them, because I was just really into filters at the time.

My sugar baby mentor told me that the effect was that I looked like either a catfish or an underage girl, which would definitely make sugar daddies avoid me. She said that it would be much better to take new pictures with the following elements:

• At least one unposed picture in which I looked relaxed and happy.
• A picture that would clearly show my face (this could be my sultry photo, if I wanted).
• A couple of pictures of me in different settings, so that I looked like a real person with hobbies.
• Good, natural lighting.
• Pictures of me with differing amounts of makeup.

The tagline

When I first made my sugar baby profile, I didn’t include a tagline. I didn’t see the point, and so many of the examples on the site felt corny, anyway. But, my sugar baby mentor told me, a tagline is like your opener, your first impression, your introduction. You need one, and the more thought you can put into it, the better.

She also told me that it was a good idea to change the tagline up every couple of weeks or months in order to try out different material. I’ve played around with more clever taglines like “Looking for someone to explain Inception to me,” and honestly unhinged, but memorable ones, like “Help me make my therapy sessions more exciting.” But eventually, I found that something sweet and true to me was the most successful, such as, “Help me give my dog a life of luxury.”

The bio

Like the tagline, I put very little effort into my bio. I figured no sugar daddy was reading through bios when they could just see the pictures and go from there. So, I think my bio was maybe two lines, saying something like, “Yeah, I want a sugar daddy. I am fun and like to party.” Okay, I’m exaggerating, but from what I remember, that’s not too far off.

My mentor was like, No, absolutely not. You need to write a good bio, and it should include the following information:

• A very brief description of who you are.
• A vague description of where you’re located,
• A more detailed description of the kind of sugar relationship you’re looking for.
• Some hints at what makes you appealing as a sugar baby.

I’ll be the first to say that writing the bio was the hardest part for me. I don’t like talking about myself, and that gave me like a mental block, so starting was difficult. But what helped was writing four to five different versions (like writing a version and then opening up a completely different doc and starting over) and then choosing bits and pieces from each that I felt proud of.

And one more thing about bios, because obviously, when I had the conversation with this girl about my profile, artificial intelligence didn’t exist. But I’m pretty positive that she would have told me not to use it. It just makes your profile feel generic and honestly, too wordy. So, I don’t know. Maybe if you’re having trouble getting started, try it out, but then rewrite it in your own voice and with details that are true to you.

The touch of authenticity

And finally, we get to the most important part of any sugar baby profile: the touch of authenticity. The je ne sais quoi of a good profile that says, “I am a real person, and not only that, you’re going to love getting to know me.” Some people call it your quirkiness, or your essence, or your unique voice. But, it’s the things that are going to give a sugar daddy the certainty that they’re not about to waste their money on a bot.

For me, it’s the throughline with my pictures and my bio, having to do with my love of cooking. I have a cute picture of me taking a bite out of a croissant, and in my bio, I allude to the fact that I baked the croissant myself. I think of this as something like a proof point, which is a concept in marketing that proves something’s validity or authenticity. The fact that a sugar daddy can see my pictures and be like, “Oh, interesting. She likes croissants,” and then read my bio and be like, “Oh, she’s even more interesting than I thought, she bakes croissants,” is like my double-factor authentication. And the added benefit is that then, the sugar daddy has something to ask me about in the DMs. You wouldn’t believe how many guys have used some version of the opening line, “So, when am I going to get to try these famous croissants of yours?”

Authenticity is gold. Trust me.

And there you have it, or there I had it

I’m giving you all of this advice because I’m honestly just so grateful to that unnamed fellow sugar baby on an online forum who gave it to me. So, take this as your incentive to take a little peek at your profile and either make a few tweaks or, like me, do a complete overhaul. It is really the glow-up you need to take your sugar dating game to the next level.