Suzie Kennedy spent years trying to change her pale skin so she would look ‘better’ in the eyes of society. It wasn’t until she saw women with darker skin embracing their looks, that she felt inspired to embrace the way God created her.
Seeing darker skinned women embrace their skin is helping me to embrace the pale skin God has given me. I used to love winter coming around as it meant I could wrap up in gorgeous big jumpers and warm trousers. But more importantly it meant that I could give the fake tan a few months off.
Summer was an endless battle of trying to turn my naturally pale lily-white legs into Californian sun kissed bronze pins. A lot of my pale skinned friends will relate to the horror stories of bright orange palms and streaky fake tan marks on white bed sheets. The magazines are filled with top tanning tips; telling us to ditch the pale and get golden. Celebrities and influencers showing off their tan lines.
Society made me feel pale skin was not attractive and, unless my ambition was to be in a renaissance painting, I would have to fake it and bake it.
The message I was getting was pale white skin was not attractive. I remember reading an interview with Nicola Roberts from the girl band “Girls Aloud”. She spoke of how she would spend all night applying fake tan whilst the other girls slept. After reading and hearing vicious comments about her pale complexion she felt like the ugly, odd one out. I never considered that applying fake tan or risking my health on a sun bed was a bad idea. Society made me feel pale skin was not attractive and, unless my ambition was to be in a renaissance painting, I would have to fake it and bake it.
But the recently released Marvel film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was a wake-up call to me to shift my perspective. Both the original and the sequel show black women with rich dark skin tones fully embracing their skin. Having worked in Hollywood for some time, I’m aware that sadly, this celebration of black skin has not always happened on screen. Darker skinned black women have also historically faced skin colour bias in their community where lighter black skin was deemed more desirable. The dark skinned model Nyakim Gatwech recently spoke out about how a taxi driver suggested she bleach her skin. She laughed at the idea. She loves her dark beautiful skin which she refers to as a symbol of elegance and strength. Something also epitomised in the Black Panther films.
The dark skinned model Nyakim Gatwech recently spoke out about how a taxi driver had suggested she bleach her skin.
One of my good friends who is also the editor of Woman Alive recently sat opposite me drinking her coffee, with her beautiful dark skin exposed in a sleeveless top. I could not help to be struck by the immense beauty of her skin. These women have all embraced who they are and the skin they are in. The skin that God made for them.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us: we are his workmanship created by Jesus Christ and that we should walk in this. As I look down at my lily-white legs, I see them differently. I embrace the beauty of the skin God made me in. Watching a darker skinned woman embrace the beauty of their shade of skin made me finally recognise the beauty of my own. Next summer my sheets will be staying white and so will my legs.
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