How do I stop letting the fact that I have fair skin get me down?

September 5, 2012 5:43 AM

I have been struggling with accepting my fair skin for as long as I can remember. How can I just accept who I am, and get on with my life?

I consider myself a fairly attractive guy, yet this is an issue I have been very hung up on my entire life (I am currently in my late 20's).

Over the summer, I will get routine airbrush tans so I don't stick out so much. I tan only slightly. It comes down to this — I am truly uncomfortable in my own skin. I try and pretend that this doesn't bother me, but ultimately I still think about it frequently through out the day. This strikes me as unhealthy.

I guess I have never let go of being teased from grade school through college regarding my skin tone, and I don't understand how to grasp the idea of having little control over a physical attribute and accepting that.

How do I accomplish this?

Extra details: What also plays a role is I don't have much support from my family in terms of "be who you are, and rock the world." I put a lot of focus on outcomes, instead of just living my life. I have been in therapy regarding my self-confidence, and while I have greatly improved over the course of my sessions during these past 2 years, this is an issue I still am at odds with. Coincidently enough, this has never been touched on in my therapy sessions. Frankly, I am embarrassed to bring it up because it seems flat-out vain.

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (34 answers total)

ultimately I still think about it frequently through out the day. This strikes me as unhealthy. Coincidently enough, this has never been touched on in my therapy sessions. Frankly, I am embarrassed to bring it up because it seems flat-out vain.

Whenever you think "I would be embarrassed to tell my therapist about this" you should tell your therapist about it. That's not even a rule of thumb; it's an iron-clad law of therapy. And in case you've never connected the dots, your skin acceptance issue is probably playing a part in your self-confidence issue.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:49 AM on September 5, 2012 [30 favorites]

Being in therapy is a great start. One of the things that therapy really helps with is accepting the things you cannot change. Print your question out and bring it to your therapist. I can almost guarantee that your therapist has heard things much more "vain" sounding than this.
posted by xingcat at 5:58 AM on September 5, 2012

Hi, fellow Casper here.

I have two skin tones, so pale I'm nearly blue and lobster red. I used to suffer in jeans in August because I was embarrassed about how white my legs were. I went to a waterpark last week in SPF 100 and a huge floppy hat, because tanning is just not an option.

At some point you have to make peace with this. For sure discuss with your therapist.

You do realize that you've blown up this one thing all out of proportion, right?

We were all teased in grade school about something. I was fat and pale. My sister was klutzy. Another kid had a jacked up hair cut. That kid over there has a watermelon head. It's just one of those things.

Bring this up in therapy in the context of: "I know this is playing a huge part in my life and I want to stop giving it air. What can I do to silence that voice in my head." You may get some neat ideas.

I do a thing where you do a tapping ritual. It was developed for people recovering from serious trauma (war attrocity-type situations.) I recommend getting a book from Paul McKenna. He teaches this method and it helps ALOT!

My Dad worked with some of the pioneers in hypnotherapy and it is very powerful. The neatest thing about it is that you can use it on yourself. You don't need to have some guy do it for you.

Another thing you can do is head over to Hot Topic and get some goth clothes. Vampires are in this year.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:00 AM on September 5, 2012 [9 favorites]

Coincidently enough, this has never been touched on in my therapy sessions. Frankly, I am embarrassed to bring it up because it seems flat-out vain.

Talk about it in therapy. You're free to preface it with: "I'm embarrassed to even bring this up because it sounds so vain, but..."
posted by John Cohen at 6:03 AM on September 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

Are you self-conscious because you don't like how fair skin looks yourself, or because you don't think other people could be attracted to very fair skin? Like what Ruthless Bunny said - everyone was teased for SOMETHING in elementary school. Usually whatever was most visually obvious.
posted by amicamentis at 6:24 AM on September 5, 2012

As you can see in my profile I am not exactly George Hamilton.

I also spent a lot of my life hung up on this, maybe it is a vanity but that doesn't diminish it's importance. Bring it up in therapy. Generally I'd recommend keeping a list of issues you want to talk about so that you don't forget to bring up something "you've always struggled with" and instead talk about something minor or passing.
posted by French Fry at 6:28 AM on September 5, 2012

We were all teased in grade school about something.

Yes. I am a redhead. I was teased relentlessly about my hair until I was about a junior in high school, when everyone seemingly realized red hair is actually a thing to be desired and started dyeing their own to match my natural shade. It really drove home to me how the point was not that a redhead is a bad thing to be, it's just the thing that made me different, and kids are assholes who love to single each other out about whatever it is that makes them stand out.

There's nothing wrong with having pale skin. I have it myself, still, and it's not something I think about basically ever. It helps, probably, that those girls who were the tan ones growing up look twenty years older than I do now, and it also helps to remember that protecting your pale skin protects your life in a very real way: my dad lived his life in the sun and died of skin cancer.

This is, as others have said above me, absolutely a thing you need to bring up in therapy. To me it's not related to vanity at all; it's related to insecurities you've carried your whole life based on things that happened to you when you were a kid, and therapy can help with that a lot.
posted by something something at 6:31 AM on September 5, 2012

I guess I have never let go of being teased from grade school through college regarding my skin tone

Might help to improve your understanding of what was happening back then. Other people don't tease that way because your attributes cause them some sort of distress, they tease because you react to the teasing, and your reaction is fun. Making other people people squirm is a power trip. Your skin tone was never the important thing; your entertaining discomfort was.
posted by jon1270 at 6:32 AM on September 5, 2012 [5 favorites]

I'm female, so my experiences might be different from yours - men with ginger hair, for example, have a more difficult time feeling attractive than women for all the crappy reasons you listed.

There is a growing trend in the UK to wear fake-tan and bronzer to the point where it can make the wearer look like a different ethnicity, or at least orange. In recent years men have become part of this. I know someone who is competitive about tanning - he will sit outside with cooking oil on his skin so he can become the right shade. He is also one of the most insecure people I know in terms of his body image. I often wonder if people fake-tan because they think it looks good on them, or, like you, because they feel they need to do it in order to fit in. Personally I'd find the idea of touching someone who has had make-up sprayed all over them very off-putting!

One thing - I'm assuming you're from the US or another Western country from your post - apologies if you are not - and in India and the Far East, people are bleaching their skin to look whiter as that is considered beautiful. Which shows how arbitrary it all is.
posted by mippy at 6:38 AM on September 5, 2012

definitely bring up with a therapist, this is not vanity.

One small point is how hung up we are in the west on tans as a sign of healthy, you rarely see images in the media of pale people in shorts or exercise gear.

as mippy says when you travel through airports in Asia all the products are whitening products not tanning products. Same for the department stores.

There is nothing wrong with wearing fake tan if you feel more secure.
posted by Wilder at 6:55 AM on September 5, 2012

I would definitely bring this up with your therapist. It's not vain, it's exactly what you said it is, a characteristic that you have no control over that you have not accepted. I, too, am very pale and was teased about it until I was in my 20s; it did not help that I grew up mostly in Arizona and California, where not being tan made me stand out even more. But kids make fun of people because they have something different about them - it does not matter what that different thing is. It can be braces or a funny haircut or highwater pants or being pigeon-toed or whatever (all characteristics that got made fun of in my school). I eventually got over it, but I was self-conscious about it through my mid-20s. What finally got me past it was getting a head-to-toe spray tan to go to a friend's wedding, looking at the photos, and realizing that I didn't look like me.

The point is, that bullying behavior is still affecting how you feel about yourself today, and that's worth discussing in therapy.
posted by bedhead at 6:56 AM on September 5, 2012

I don't know if this will be helpful to you, but in case it is ... I think pale people are incredibly attractive. I have spent the past 11 years in a state of dazed bliss with someone who wears sunblock in the winter and glows slightly under a blacklight.

And I know I am not alone in this.
posted by kyrademon at 7:10 AM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Female here. Although I'm not a redhead, I am relatively pale. I used to feel self-conscious about it, but with skin cancer on the rapid upswing, I now have a built in comeback to "pale" remarks:

"Yup. I'm pale. But I'd rather be pale than have skin cancer."

OR

"Yup. I'm pale. But I'll age slower."

OR

"Yup. I'm pale. But I'll look like I'm 30 when I'm 50, so joke is on all the young boys."

...and so on.

Also: someone on here said something that really resonated with me awhile ago - different people have different preferences and attractiveness isn't a one-size-fits-all. Some people love fat people, some people are attracted to skinny people, some people are repulsed by muscles...the list goes on. I try to remind myself of this whenever I feel self-conscious about XYZ.

FWIW, my boyfriend is a pale redhead. Once I went ginger, I never went back. Pale guys are sexy.
posted by floweredfish at 7:11 AM on September 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

Growing up in the age of the bronze seventies & eighties (in California no less) as a pale-skinned tow-head who doesn't tan, I feel your pain. No laying out on beach towels slathered in cocoa butter for me, thank you very much. I went from ghost-white to lobster red in minutes the first time I tried (Whaddya want? I was thirteen!) and burned some part of my body every year after that. It's been long skirts and jeans every summer since (and I've lived in some HOT states!).

How do you accept it? You just do. Well, I just did. Yeah, I got teased about my pale skin, and my nearly white hair (until it started to darken in Jr. High). I also got teased about my height (shortest in my class until Jr. High), about being an identical twin, about being poor, and about being skinny. Being pale was just part of the parcel.

Being teased is just a part of my past that doesn't bother me anymore because it's a part of what made me who I am today. Like my pale skin, it's something that cannot be changed. Once I accepted that, accepting the things I was teased about became a lot easier. Having pale skin is part of me, and who I am. Hell, I LOVE my pale skin and work hard to keep it that way. It's like having green eyes and blonde hair. I wear them all proudly and don't try to change them (unless I'm feeling froggy for auburn hair, but that's not because I of any shame for blonde, just a need for change).
posted by patheral at 7:14 AM on September 5, 2012

Fellow Fitzpatrick 1 here. You need to bring this up with a therapist. If it's impacting your day to day life, it's a real problem.

One health caveat: if you have very pale skin you're at elevated risk of skin cancer. Do you ever lie out in the sun? Do you use sunscreen? When was the last time you had your skin checked for moles? If you're uncomfortable with your skin colour you may be neglecting these very important aspects of self care.

I think what helps me is knowing that when my skin looks very pale that's a sign it's healthy. If it's red, or if there's a new crop of freckles, that means something's wrong.
posted by nerdfish at 7:16 AM on September 5, 2012

I'm in the very pale club, too.

I think that being bold and humorous about these kinds of things (obvious traits you don't like about yourself or that may have been mocked) really, really helps. Basically, it can put the ball in your court. I don't mean you have to go around making awkward jokes about how pale you are all the time, but if you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, YOU can be the one to acknowledge your paleness, rather than wondering if others have noticed, or feeling like all the eyes are on you. This can be internal or external. You'd be surprised how much verbalizing (or sub-verbalizing, if you're talking to yourself) can diffuse tense feelings.

Once you have pointed out your paleness to yourself and to others, as an obvious fact that just is what it is, there's very little room for anybody else to make a big deal of it. Not that I think anybody wants to make a big deal of it anyway.

In my personal experience, there have been 2 kinds of people who comment on my paleness:
1. People who worry that I'm sick. They generally tend to be people of color (but not always) whose faces never, under any circumstance, look even slightly green or blue, and probably don't realize that it can be totally normal for some of us and not an indication of illness.
2. People who live in tropical areas and see lots and lots of pale tourists wearing shorts for the first time in 6 months.

I don't think any adult has ever commented on my skin tone out of anything but concern. I think you can be fairly certain that a) people are not noticing your skin tone NEARLY as much as you think, b) if anybody ever is noticing or commenting on your skin tone, it's almost certainly out of concern or generic interest, rather than because you look funny or bad.
posted by Cygnet at 7:19 AM on September 5, 2012

In many parts of the world white is considered fashionable and skin bleachers are heavily marketed. I had someone come up to me in the Philippines once and compliment my "red and white" skin (I had a slight sunburn), I chatted with them and told them that in North America people spends tons of money on fake tanners and sit in the sun all day to look as brown as he did and he didn't believe me. He's probably as hung up on not being white as you are on being white.

I can tan fine and spent my childhood a coconut brown, but as a pre-teen heard that too much sun will lead to problems later and have been wearing long sleeves and 60spf ever since. I get teased about my paleness, in "who's the whitest" contests I rarely lose and I have never felt self concious or bothered by it. I was just telling another pasty that we should start a line of under things for the really pale (as "nude" is usually a strange cappuccino brown that matches no skin tone). I proposed calling this line "fish belly".

So it might help you to roll around in your mind when this bothers you that a) in parts of the world people do damaging things in an attempt to resemble you, and b) someone out there has chosen to look pale and suffers absolutely no emotional ill from it.

And, yes, bring it up with your therapist. You're paying them, you can force them to listen to your rendition of "My Girl" on a recorder for an hour if you wanted.
posted by Dynex at 7:23 AM on September 5, 2012

Pale skin is very romantic, even in men. Ladies have been swooning over not just vampires, but refined, sensitive gentlemen for a very long time. Very romantic. It may even make you appear more intelligent (hence the teasing).
posted by amtho at 7:24 AM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

For everything you hate about yourself, someone envies that trait. It's a normal human thing to want the opposite of what you have. I can't tell you how many years (mainly in the 80s) I spent trying to get my stick-straight hair to take a perm so I could have huge rocking hair. At most, the curls would last two weeks. My brother spent the 90s straightening his thick curly hair so he'd look more like the stringy-haired grunge guys that were all over. At some point you have to make peace with who you are.

Yeah, I wanted to be oh-so-goth when I was a teen and I covered up my olive skin with white base daily. In pictures from those times I look like I'm acting in a Kabuki play. My face is ghost white but my arms are brown. I have accepted that I'll never be pale.

If it causes you distress, definitely talk to your therapist about this. Also consider finding some flattering colors you can wear that will not detract from your appearance. One advantage I've come to see about being olive-skinned it that I can get away with much more saturated colors in clothing & makeup (magenta, bright fuchsia, purples, cobalt blue) than someone significantly paler. Consider wearing shirts that complement your skin's undertones.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 7:25 AM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Even if it's "just" vanity, it's fucking up your life. Bring up things in therapy that are fucking up your life: that's what it's for. If your therapist has been in practice for longer than a week, they have heard far "weirder" things than this.
posted by rtha at 8:19 AM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Similar to bedhead, I think you should stop thinking about this as "vainity" and more about "the aftermath of decades of bullying".
posted by endless_forms at 8:49 AM on September 5, 2012

Seconding what Cygnet says above: be bold and humorous about it, and it really will help you see the humor in it yourself.

So if someone asks you, for example, how was your weekend?, you might say with a totally straight face, "oh, it was great...spent the whole weekend working on my tan...whaddya think?" Then kind of show off your arms while they burst out laughing, realizing that you are making fun of yourself for no reason whatsoever.

I'm not pale skinned, but i did go mostly bald by my mid-30's, which a lot of people also seem to be overly concerned about when it happens to them.

But i'll often times crack jokes at my own expense, which i think relaxes everyone and kind of says, this is an area that you don't have to walk on eggshells around. My kids always make fun of me and some of my better friends will crack bald jokes, etc. and i think they enjoy that I never get rattled or take it personally. Sometimes I'll quote a line from a scene in Spinal Tap, and say (with a British accent), "I am as God made me!" - which is extra ridiculous since i'm an athiest. But hey, it's true!
posted by see_change at 9:31 AM on September 5, 2012

Every skin color is beautiful. You are having dysmorphia about yours. Talk with your therapist. You need to process the bullying and stop internalizing it.

I also don't think getting fake tans is such a terrible thing; it sounds like you're ashamed of it or think it's overly vain or superficial, but if you like the way it looks and can afford it, what's the harm?
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:32 AM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

No lie, right before I sat down and read this I was actually thinking to myself how much more attractive I've fouund pale-skinned men because of the difference/novelty of it, compared to myself and what I grew up with. (I'm a white lady.)
posted by availablelight at 9:33 AM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh man, you know what you will NOT be thinking about when you're on your deathbed? "I wish I had been more tanned and been able to successfully conform to a very specific type of beauty."

Life is too short my friend.

You know what is fucking hot? When you meet people who seem to have sprung from nowhere. People you can't even imagine having parents because they seem like they made themselves up. People who ARE beauty. People who BECOME beauty. Dudes and gals. They radiate thoughtfulness, grace, wisdom, quiet (and sometimes loud!) confidence. They take up space, not because of how big they are, but of how BIG they are. Larger than life. Not sweating the small stuff. You know these people. And I think everyone has the potential to be one of these people if we just let ourselves go. Stop hating on ourselves for not being pretty perfect handsome in that way with those clothes with that hair and that skin.

I give myself pep talks in the mirror when I feel down / not good enough / pretty / smart / competent. When I have a giant zit on my face I think about something in the future, like Christmas or vacation or something like that and I'll be like "By Christmas that ugly zit'll be gone." It makes you realize how totally transient and utterly ridiculous and crippling getting hung up on superficial stuff can be. It can literally get in the way of your awesome because you're using all that brain space to obsess over something that seriously DOES NOT MATTER. Like, whoa.

Also, because you are worried about your skin tone, I should add that I am PALE. Like I am so pale that I recently stayed out in the SHADE too long in Key West and got a giant second degree burn on my skin FROM THE SUN BEHIND THE SHADE. And that burn on my thigh is now fading into a GIANT scar that looks like a whale breaching towards my knee. That motherfucker HURT.

I will never be tan. I should carry a parasol at all times because I am so pale. You can see every bit of cellulite on my thighs and wobbly bits (including the damned wobbly arms). I can't even try to get a tan because I get whale shaped burns, my friend.

This will never change. No amount of spray tan will take away the fact that I am just not a person equipped to tan ever.

And you know what? When the ladies in my office talk about sun worshiping and I'm like, "I will never be tan, no way." They go, "OMG YOU ARE AN ALIEN" (they also say this when I say just about everything about my life/thoughts/interests, to give you some context).

I cannot tell you enough HOW AWESOME IT IS TO BE AN ALIEN. Embrace your paleness. I bet there is a whole bunch of other quirky stuff in your brain that has nothing to do with your skin that you've been trying to change about yourself too. EMBRACE THAT TOO. Give yourself pep talks in the mirror. Walk down the street like you have a secret that no one else knows, cause you do. That secret is how awesome you are and you don't have to share that with anyone else except for who you absolutely want to.

And the other cool thing? You can think all this stuff and still spray tan if it floats your boat. Cause you'll have a choice--to be tan awesome or pale awesome--and both of those include awesome. WIN-WIN.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 9:58 AM on September 5, 2012 [11 favorites]

Oh dude, I'm there man. I HATE it. I've been teased my whole life. Even as an adult people comment all the time. I'm also gay, which means dudes scrutinize every freaking flaw I have. I get laughed at sometimes. People are cruel and thoughtless. But, when I take my shirt off there is a line of guys waiting to rub sunscreen on me, know why? Because I'm freaking ripped. I work out and feel good about myself. yeah, I'd love to change my paleness, but I can't. Make what you've got work for you. Not everyone will find you attractive and that is OK!
posted by Craig at 11:49 AM on September 5, 2012

I sympathise. I'm incredibly pale, I was teased about it when I was young (even by my family), and I people continue to comment on it now that I'm a self-sufficient adult. I do still wish I had a different natural skin tone, but something that has helped me a bit is practising my poker face. When someone makes an uncouth and/or unprofessional comment about my skin (oh yes, it continues to happen in the workplace), I give them a completely neutral look and say something innocuous like "Oh, why do you say that?" or "Hm, that's an interesting idea". I try to remember that they're the one being impolite, and therefore they should be the one feeling uncomfortable - not me. Even if I'm squirming inside, I don't let it show. It has helped me feel a bit more okay with myself over the years.
posted by neushoorn at 2:13 PM on September 5, 2012

As an Asian, I go way out of my way to stay pale. Besides the usual hats, cover-ups, and sunblock, I am absolutely that person carrying a parasol on sunny days. I've had people shout at me while I was walking down the street. (I live in California, worship of the sun is intense here.)

But! I am in my early 30s, and I look like I'm in my mid-20s, and it's more than just my genes. People who love the sun...well, let's just say that they look their age.

That just goes to show you that people will tease you for anything. Embrace your paleness! Trust me, you would be a huge hit in other parts of the world. Heck, I have a friend who is literally allergic to sunlight, and her pale skin is beautiful.
posted by so much modern time at 2:25 PM on September 5, 2012

One last thing: having suffered from low self-esteem about my appearance before, I literally put a piece of paper with "You are beautiful just the way you are" scrawled on it next to my mirror. I say this to myself every day. As cheesy as it sounds, it really works.
posted by so much modern time at 2:27 PM on September 5, 2012

This is definitely something you should bring up with a therapist. I can totally relate to the life encompassing obsessive thoughts that can come with an insecurity. The one thing that really helps me is knowing that most people aren't focusing on my bad traits (or what I perceive to be bad, I don't like my hair or my chin). They see me as an average of all my parts. The few people who do negatively zero in on something I don't like about myself, are people who are extremely insecure themselves. And I'll just throw this out there, I prefer male men. Tan men aren't a deal breaker, but I'd jump over a stack of tan dudes to get to the palest one in the bunch. Pale is fucking hot.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 2:49 PM on September 5, 2012

I am kind of your pale counterpart: late twenties but female and also considered attractive (do you know how long it took me to finally accept the idea that other people could think I'm attractive? "but...I'm so pale!" In high school I refused to wear shorts or mini skirts, and even for awhile I wouldn't wear short sleeved shirts. I still don't wear short shorts or skirts but I am comfortable wearing a skirt and tank top, for example) I also had acne until my mid-twenties so that didn't help since acne is so much more noticeable on pale skin.

It also doesn't help that people tend to comment on how pale people are because it's not as taboo as commenting on other differences in appearance or other differences in skin color.

So, as a 28 year old female who has, for the most part, made peace with her incredibly pale skin, I think it's just important to find ways to like who you are. I've always worked out and exercised regularly and I make sure that my diet is good to make my skin look as good as possible. I also make sure that I buy clothes that I genuinely like and that accentuate what I like about myself.

If you're seeing a therapist and want to bring this sort of thing up, please do. It is not vain. Feel free to memail me as well...
posted by fromageball at 3:41 PM on September 5, 2012

"Whenever you think "I would be embarrassed to tell my therapist about this" you should tell your therapist about it."

THIS. THIS. THIS. THIS. AND MORE OF THIS.

I have an ex who is in therapy. She has such a crystal clear pattern that brings her unhappiness and I guarandamntee she doesn't tell her therapist about it - because she'd be embarrassed - and that's why she doesn't get the help she needs to break the cycle.

As for you: I can promise that I am paler than you are unless you're an albino (because I'm an albino). Being fair skinned doesn't mean you're not good looking. It only means you don't look like a darker skinned person. And let's be honest here. What's to say that if you were born with darker skin you wouldn't wish you had fair skin?

I'm not saying I wouldn't like to have darker skin or at least be able to tan in the summer. But in the end, it doesn't matter since I am who and what I am.

You can either waste your life lamenting not being the man you're not, or you can make the most of your life by embracing being the man you are. Change what you can change and accept what you cannot. Fair skin? Can't change that. And, frankly, you're probably a good looking guy in anyone's eyes except your own.

Talk to your therapist about this.

Best of luck!

P.S. I'd stop wasting money on fake tans if I were you. You're better off spending the money on clothes that make you look your best.
posted by 2oh1 at 4:15 PM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

One more thought: regarding remarks from others about you being fair skinned. You'll get less of them if you don't set yourself up for them. I'm not saying you do, but, if you crack self deprecating jokes about your appearance, you're calling attention to something you don't like. Imagine if you had a pimple. If you crack a joke about it, people will notice it.

If you don't mention it, nobody will notice or even care. But if you call attention to it, even in an attempt to pretend you don't care about it, you're just bringing attention to it.
posted by 2oh1 at 4:21 PM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

whimsicalnymph: "Oh man, you know what you will NOT be thinking about when you're on your deathbed? "I wish I had been more tanned and been able to successfully conform to a very specific type of beauty.""

A million times this!

I'm a fellow pale person. I tell people that I'll burst into flame if I spend too much time in the sun. I grew up in SoCAl and as others have said, the sun worship has always been strong there. As a kid I hated not being able to tan. I went from lobster, to scaly/peely and back to pale. There were lots of not-so-nice comments. Fuck 'em.

My suggestion is to treat your skin nicely. Exfoliate, lotion, pamper to the nth degree. Skin that is taken care of is beautiful no matter what shade it is.
posted by deborah at 11:27 PM on September 5, 2012 [2 favorites]