A doomsday prepper has gone viral for telling women how to prepare for attacks, emergencies and the apocalypse with a variety of unusual methods.
Sari Sanchez was inspired to start her “prepping” social media pages after watching action films such as Rambo and Commando with her late dad, Felipe, who died when she was 16.
“Preppers” are people who actively get ready for global catastrophe.
The 40-year-old, Chicago-born star’s content focuses on both grounded and left-field issues, including must-have tools, skills and recommendations for flat tyres, wildfires and even a zombie apocalypse or alien invasion.
She has amassed more than 50,000 followers and millions of views on her TikTok account @prettyinprep by sharing her top survival guidance, self-defence tips and emergency essentials.
Sanchez’s advice is tailored to women, including how to use a steel pen or hot coffee for self-defence, the dangers of driving with a claw clip in your hair and a recommendation for a portable toilet which can fit in your purse.
“A lot of people make prepping a political thing, or they think of a weird guy with a beard living in a hut in the woods with his dog and his manifesto – I think I provide a different face,” Sari told PA Real Life.
“I also love makeup, and I love to laugh, I don’t take anything too seriously, which is a nice balance to facing the apocalypse.
“I prepare so that I don’t have to face those situations.
“I don’t want to go to an island and be naked and survive off frog skin – but would I like to play a character that does? I sure would.”
Sanchez developed a survivor mindset from a young age thanks to being “an only child of a dad that loved action movies”.
She counted Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Bruce Lee and Sylvester Stallone amongst her action heroes, recalling how she would watch films like Under Siege, Bloodsport and Rambo with her father Felipe instead of doing her homework.
“I was his little girl but he treated me like his little boy,” Sari said.
“I think especially because I was a girl, he was like, ‘You can do anything. You can survive.’”
Felipe, a Mexican immigrant who set up his own handyman business, was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a form of leukaemia, when Sanchez was 12.
Despite being given just two months to live, he lived a further four years, passing away when Sanchez was 16.
During college, Sanchez worked three jobs to fund her studies and joined the rifle team with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a scheme which trains students to become officers in the US Armed Forces.
Equipped with a diligent work ethic and troubled by the dangers she witnessed in these formative years in Chicago, Sari soon decided her future lay in survivalism.
“I watched people get robbed. I watched women get harassed,” she said.
“I felt like I needed to take care of myself just the same way my dad taught me when I was a little girl.”
Moving to Los Angeles, California, in 2007 to pursue a career in Hollywood, Sanchez became interested in camping and started learning much more about prepping and survivalism.
In 2023, she started making TikTok videos, showcasing the key items she keeps by her bed including a crowbar, flashlight and gloves for “removing rubble or glass” and the contents of her emergency “bug-out bag”.
This bag holds her go-to essential items, including a tourniquet, gloves, goggles, a mask, a water filter, basic medication, a Diva menstrual cup or period underwear, a radio and a map.
Her videos soon went viral, and she found a niche tailoring her advice, product reviews and equipment breakdowns to women.
Sanchez’s tips include self-defence guidance such as how to use pepper spray and tasers and how hot coffee or a steel pen can be repurposed as weapons in the event of an attack.
Other videos see her showing off gas masks and crossbows, explaining how to ensure makeup doesn’t smudge when putting on a motorcycle helmet and building a survivalist essentials bag for a Taylor Swift concert.
Sanchez said her advice seems to have cut through, explaining: “All of my friends now carry flats with them if they go out to be able to walk, or they get off their phone, take the pods out of their ears, and just be aware of what’s going on.”
For her, prepping is about planning for the end of the world and day-to-day issues.
In one video she explains how women can urinate while in a car in case they are “evacuating from an alien invasion” or “on a roadtrip and it’s not safe to pull over”.
Another discusses putting on makeup to feel confident before facing a difficult day “or the apocalypse”.
“Sometimes you’re putting on makeup, and it feels like war paint,” she said.
“So, if your apocalypse is going to a meeting where a bunch of people are trying to fire you, and you want to feel really good about that presentation, and you’ve got to put a little war paint on that comes in the shade of ‘diva’ from Mac Studios, girl, you put that on.”
While Sanchez doesn’t believe an apocalypse is around the corner, she explained: “If you’re in a car and you break down and you’ve got a kiddo, you should know what to do.
“I talk a lot about aliens and zombies because it’s fun, and it makes it less scary to think about tsunamis and war and bad guys coming into your house.”
Sanchez advised wannabe survivalists to start by using an old backpack to create a bag that can be grabbed in emergencies, with a water bottle and first aid supplies
“Then really think about your community and your skills,” she said.
“Be nice to people and get to know people, because maybe they can help – you don’t have to do it all alone.”
Rather than heightening her anxiety, Sari said imagining possible disasters helps her to remain calm.
“I feel more at peace if I’m controlling my environment,” she said.
“Be as prepared as you can be and then let go… you have a piece of chocolate, you laugh, you throw on some lipstick, because why not? You live your life.”
