All my life I enjoyed having light skin. I never realized that I would be made fun of for it.
Growing up, I use to spend half my day in the summer outside either pulling weeds, picking rock, mowing the lawn, fishing, or just playing outside with the farm cats. I would get an occasional sunburn every summer, but nothing too serious. It normally hurt a little for a day or two then turned into a tan. This happened only a couple years in my childhood.
I had what many called a farmer’s tan. A farmer’s tan is basically a tan, where you have obvious tan line from your clothing, sunglasses, shoes and socks, ect. The only way to avoid a full farmers tan is to basically go into a tanning salon and tan near naked or perhaps buy lotions that will make you skin look tanner in a matter of hours.
Then one day, many years ago, my grandma told me that she loved my skin. She said that I had peaches and cream skin, something people don’t have as much.
From that point on I really was happy with not getting a full on tan.
So many girls from my high school were spending all this time trying to get tan. To many, being tanned meant that you cared about your body image. Normally, it was the popular girls in school that got the tans.
One person made a comment to one of them that they would get wrinkles faster if they tanned all the time. They replied, “I don’t care. If I’m old, I’m going to look old anyway. I might as well look good now and worry about the wrinkles later.”
Another year at school, this girl went to the tanning salon every week before prom. One day she came to school and every one gasped at her appearance, but not in a good way. Her eyes were messed up. They were puffy and peeling weird. It was one of those incidents where it felt like you were looking at a car accident. You should look away and not stare, but you can’t keep your eyes from it.
We asked her what happened. She explained that it had something to do with the goggles in the tanning salon that she was wearing. It was something to do with the soap or disinfecting stuff they put on got on her eyes and she was either allergic or the process of laying in the tanning booth made it cook on her skin. I never understood really what happened.
She had to go through a lot of make-up to look half ways decent for prom because this happened to her one week before. I guess it’s the price you pay for beauty.
Being out in the sun is definitely good for a person. The sun releases Vitamin D which, like any vitamin, is good for the body. But there are other ways to get Vitamin D than to just go out, soaking up some rays. You only need about ten to fifteen minutes of sunshine, three times a week to get enough Vitamin D that your body needs.
Too much Vitamin D and you can get calcium deposits in your body. Not enough Vitamin D and you can get things such as osteoporosis as an adult or rickets as a child.
I find it a shame that a lot of people think that they have to be tan to look good. I mean, no sunlight at all, and living like a vampire is no good either, but there are a lot of problems that can come from tanning too much in salons or too much sun.
There’s cancer and early signs of aging with wrinkles.
Sometimes I get made fun of for having fair skin. It kind of bothers me at times, but I wouldn’t change for them. I think fair skin with a nice skin complexion is very beautiful.
Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything wrong with people who get a tan from being out in the sun. Remember to always wear some form of sunscreen to help protect your skin.
I just mainly wanted to emphasize that people really shouldn’t frown upon people who have pale or fair skin. It doesn’t mean they don’t care about how they look. It doesn’t mean they sit in the basement for weeks at a time and don’t see the sun.
A long time ago, having pale skin meant you were wealthy. The peasants would have to work outside, and the rich could stay indoors.
Nowadays it seems like people think in order to be beautiful, you have to be tan. I think that those with pale skin shouldn’t be made fun of.
I have gotten the, “Have you seen any sunlight lately?”
I am happy with my “peaches and cream” skin. And though my grandma is no longer alive, I carry that with me. I think that there is nothing wrong with pale skin.
I think any skin color is beautiful, from the very dark to the very light and you shouldn’t try to change that to make others like you more.
