Dita Von Teese is late. I know this not because I've been in the lobby of New York City's NoMad Hotel trading late celebrity stories for the past 20 minutes with a photographer named Ben (Birdman made someone wait three days, he says), but because the burlesque star called my desk line (!) and left a message with her cell phone number (!!). And her radically normal behavior doesn't end there. She floats into the room with her seamless alabaster skin and signature red lips, wearing a calf-grazing pencil skirt and a sheer white blouse, without so much as a makeup artist (she does her own) or publicist in tow. 

Von Teese grew up in small-town Michigan and Orange County, California, where she got her first job selling lingerie at age 15. "I couldn't wait to get my first bra. I used to sneak into my mom's lingerie drawer," she says. Today it's possible to seduce, smell, eat, and exercise like the retro-inspired lifestyle guru, whose brand includes underwear, perfume, lipstick, and books, with a new read, Your Beauty Mark: The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour (HarperCollins), out this month, accompanied by her own shade of red M.A.C lipstick. Here, Von Teese talks to us about Playboy, perfume, breakups, and more.

On lingerie and seduction 

I realize some people think [wearing nice lingerie] is just for sex. That's an epic fail in the seduction game. You string them in, but you want to do it in a way that they don't even notice it's happening. You do it by doing things for your own pleasure and not trying to please someone. You have to think, Okay, I like beautiful candles, nice bedding, and I like beautiful music playing, or I like lingerie. As soon as you think, I need to put this on because he'll think it's sexy, that's when it becomes a frantic thing and it's not right. And it doesn't even have to be the things that I just mentioned. Maybe your thing is wearing those super thin sheer white cotton T-shirts and underwear. You have to believe it and own it. You have to honor yourself in everyday life. The thoughts you think radiate. 

this image is not availablepinterest
Hellin Kay

On 'Playboy' no longer printing nude pictures 

I'm very conflicted about it. On one hand, I don't really know what the point is if they don't have nudes. I understand where they're coming from from a financial point of view that it's not really worth it, but I think that they've made some mistakes along the way that have led them to this place. It used to be such a cachet, and somewhere along the way there was a disconnect, I think, or maybe they made a few bad decisions about who they made their cover girls. For a long time everyone knew who the Playmate of the Year was. It was Anna Nicole Smith, it was Pamela Anderson, and it was Jenny McCarthy. I don't think that it's just that there's too much porn and too much nudity on the Internet. That's a cop-out. When I was on the cover of Playboy I remember being like, Oh my God, I'm going to be on the cover. Like Demi Moore, Drew Barrymore, Sharon Stone, Sherilyn Fenn, it was still a moment when it felt like a big thing. But I don't know, the last great cover was the Kate Moss one. I think it's sad that that kind of photography might go away. 

this image is not availablepinterest
Hellin Kay

On beauty lighting

You can make or break somebody with lighting. Do you remember when that scandal happened with Cindy Crawford with those unretouched photos of her in a bikini or lingerie that got out? I was thinking, That's not about not retouching, that's about someone that doesn't know how to light a body with no clothes on. Because I've seen Cindy Crawford with her bathing suit on and she does not look like that, she looks amazing. There's lighting that I step into and go, Holy crap, I should never go on stage again, and then I step on stage in front of a beautiful pink spotlight and lots of side lighting and fill and it looks beautiful. Playboy photos are lit with like 30 lights! Retouching is not the issue, it's the lighting. I have beauty lighting in every room of my house. I have dimmer switches. The more light you have surrounding you, and when it's in beautiful color, it's light peachy, amber, candlelight, pink, it's flattering. I'm a big fan of lighting and I'm sick of people saying, 'Oh she's retouched within a inch of her life.' And I'm like, 'No, she's well lit.' 

On her niche empire

I'm always struggling with the things that I believe in versus what sells to the masses. I made four perfumes and those perfumes are beautiful. One of them in particular is exquisite and every time I wear it around tastemakers and famous perfumers they're like, 'What is that fragrance? It's so good!' And I'm like, 'I know, I made it!' It sells for $25; it's amazing. But is it ever going to sell as well as Jennifer Lopez's perfume or Rihanna's perfume? No, because it's too special, it's too obscure. I should have made a vanilla, fruity, sweet perfume and I probably would have sold a lot more.

this image is not availablepinterest
Hellin Kay

On how to survive a breakup

One thing I learned from my therapist was during stressful times, I needed to pick up a hobby that had nothing to do with my work or with beauty; not working out or looking good. She was like, 'I want you to do something new that makes you feel uncomfortable, that requires total focus.' I ended up taking dressage lessons, horse riding lessons. I was in a place in my life when I was going through a horrible breakup. I was hyper-aware of what I was doing instead of obsessing over these things. There's this great book called, It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken. It's by this couple, [and it's an] incredibly funny book about how to handle a breakup. It was humorous, enlightening, totally realistic. Really, going through a breakup is like coming off hard drugs; it's like breaking an addiction. 

this image is not availablepinterest
Hellin Kay

On deflecting haters

I don't feed into gossip. If other girls around me are talking trash about someone, I'll be like, 'Oh, wow, that's an interesting point of view. I don't get that about that person. Did you ever consider that you might be wrong or you don't have the whole story?' So I love defusing people and gossip. I have to remind myself and work at it.

On her least favorite word

I thought about giving a quiz first. Sometimes people say my name wrong. Or they'll say, 'I don't really like what you do, but can I take a picture?' When I was with my ex-husband [Marilyn Manson] people would say, 'I don't like your music, but can I take a picture?' People say some crazy things. But I'm super grateful that someone cares. I don't want to ever seem like I'm not grateful. Mostly I really hate the word selfieSelfie is my least favorite word. I used to love to take pictures with my camera and a timer and good lighting, self-portraits that seem like they're voyeuristic, but when people started saying, 'Oh, it's a selfie,' that was when I stopped doing that.

this image is not availablepinterest
Hellin Kay

How she gets off the grid

There's a party, I don't even want to say it because I don't want people to know about it. It's like a mini Burning Man, but it's a small group of people. There are these desert retreats I like to go to where it's like 1500 people. We rent an RV, we go camping; it's on an Indian reservation. Super exclusive Burning Man. I love going to those things where nobody is on their phones because phones don't work. People will be like, 'Are you you? Can I hug you?' Nobody says, 'Can I take a selfie?' People are there in the moment. You can be free and I can wear a little bit of makeup. I don't have to worry about who's filming me. I can be just part of the party. I love the music and I love people being free in a selfie-free zone. I love going off the grid like that. That #picsoritdidnthappen thing is so tired.

this image is not availablepinterest
Hellin Kay

Her philosophy on aging

I'm going to get awesomer. I'm going to get smarter, I'm going to get funnier, and I'm going to get more interesting to be around. Like anyone, I look at pictures of my 22-year-old ass and think, Whoa, you used to eat cheeseburgers and you were 10 pounds heavier, but you were awesome-looking. I was unedited and I didn't care about any picture that anyone took of me and I wasn't worried about anyone saying anything bad about me.