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The sun is my enemy. | Source: Flickr
Growing up in Southern California, in a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood, being the whitest girl around (well, besides my equally ghostly sister) wasn’t exactly easy. While the other kids would turn a golden brown color playing out front in the sprinklers, I’d either have to stay in the shade or risk turning lobster red during the summer months. I was different. I was weird. I was . . . so freaking white, and desperate to blend in even just once.
My parents didn’t make my chalky skin any easier to wear, either. My mom, who isn’t quite as pale as I am, would yell at me to come get another coat of sunblock applied roughly every 2.5 minutes whenever I was trying to play with my friends–and my dad, who truly is as white as a sheet, would embarrass the hell out of me with his own inventive skin protection schemes. Once, after I cut off an old pair of jeans to make jean shorts, he asked if he could keep the denim legs I’d cut off. Thinking he wanted them for rags to wipe down his car or something, I handed them over–only to totally regret it later. He wore my old jean legs (I kid you not) on his ARMS while driving to protect his skin from the sun. The first time he picked me up from a birthday party with those things on, I just about died. Thankfully, he never insisted on me wearing a similar getup.
Oh, Linds! Orange on orange isn't such a good look! | Source: Shutterstock
It was then that I realized that not only would I not look amazing with a tan–I’d look flat-out bad. I love how pale I am and feel sad when I think about how much I wanted to blend into a sea of tan skin when I was younger.
Yes, being more “brown” was trendy when I was in high school–but then, lots of girls with naturally darker skin use skin lightening creams and other techniques to try to be more pale, since lighter skin is more “desirable” in many cultures. If you ask me, it’s all ridiculous and honestly sad. Since when should one skin color be “trendier” than another? It’s creepy and it’s what keeps us from realizing just how beautiful we all are naturally.
Take a look at Cate Blanchett, Devon Aoki, Mila Kunis, Padma Lakshmi, Aisha Tyler, and Selena Gomez. Gorgeous ladies. All different skin tones. Proof that blending in is boring, and that being you–whether you’ve got pale skin like me, honey coloring, or deep skin–is beautiful.
Do you have super pale skin? Have you ever wanted to be tanner or more pale? Tell me everything in the comments!
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I know this is mainly a gals forum but us guys have the same problem sometimes. I’m very fair and there is a super tanned girl that sits next to me in class at school who I want to take to the beach but I’m too shy to ask. I hardly ever wear short sleeve shirts because my arms are so ghostly white and one warm day I wore one to school and she was bragging to me about how tan she was and then she put her arm next to mine and went ” Oooooh, chocolate and vanilla”. At that point I told her we should go to the beach together and all she did was laugh. I felt totally humiliated!! Anybody have any suggestions what I can do to get her interested? I really like this gal.
I’m extremely fair skinned and even feel embarrassed in shorts and sleeveless/short sleeve tops even though I always wear them in the summer. My parents just joined a nudist club and paid extra to add me as a member. They said I will eventually get a tan there but my doctor always tells me otherwise as she says I’m so unusually fair skinned that I couldn’t possibly ever tan. So I went to the nudist resort and as soon as i walked in and disrobed I felt totally petrified and humiliated among a sea of dark skinned and tanned bodies. I decided to go sit In the jacuzzi and there was an older man sitting nearby who kept staring, obviously checking me out. He eventually came in the jacuzzi and came up to me and told me how much he admired my creamy white skin and proceeded to ask me out for dinner that night. I just told him I had a boyfriend (which I really don’t) and got out of the jacuzzi and went back to the car and put my clothes on and stayed there until my parents were ready to leave. I don’t want to go back there but my parents say I have to because they paid slot of money for me to join. Someone please tell me what I should do.
When I was younger all the girls used to tease me at the beach because I look so white. Then I met a black girl at a bar who asked me for sex and we went to my hotel room and after we stripped totally nude I apologized for being so white and she told me how much she liked super pale white guys, after which we had about an hour of sex with some of the best orgasms I’ve ever had. Ever since then I’ve enjoyed being white and have taken pride at the each being the whitest guy there.
Well, John, I’m black and I wish I could meet a guy like you. I have a neighbor who has these super white arms and legs. I’ve told him he’s cute and I see him down by the pool trying to get a tan and I wish he’d realize that there are many girls, black and white, that think that super fair skinned guys are attractive.
I’m white as a ghost too even though I have black hair and brown eyes. I lay out by the pool as often as I can even though I never tan, I just love the sun. I agree with Rebecca, guys who have super fair skin are very attractive. I wish I could meet one and have him take me to a nude beach or somewhere where public nudity is legal.
Thanks for the comments Rebecca and Melissa. Wish I could meet the both of you.
My family has super white origins (Irish and Swiss), so I’m extremely pale most of the time. It’s not like I can’t get a tan, but I don’t spend a lot of time outside, so I usually don’t have one. Even after reading this, I still want a tan. I don’t like how pale my skin looks and how my veins show through. I want to be able to wear shorts without feeling like a cave-dwelling loser.
Wow, I can certainly relate to this. I inherited my Mom’s super white Irish skin and this past summer she and I decided to bite the bullet and put our bikinis on and spend as much time as possible laying by the pool at our condo to finally get some color. Before too long we became known to all our neighbors as the “Casper twins” and we kept getting comments like we’re so white we’re almost albinos and that sort of thing. We were both so embarrassed!! At the end of summer we were still both totally white as sheets and our doctor says we are just wasting our time trying to tan as she says we both are unusually fair skinned. So with all that being said I guess I just have to tell the whole world…….I admit it, I’m white!!!!
We should get together Brenda, I’ve got the same problem. I lay by the pool every summer and hear the same comments. This really tanned girl always tells me I look like the Pilsbury doughboy before he’s baked. How frustrating!! I hope we can meet up sometime, I’ll take you and your Mom to the beach, OK? And I think you’re doctor’s wrong, really fair skinned people like us can get a tan if we do it gradually. I have a bad habit of overdoing it, sounds like you and your Mom do too.
Being tan wasn’t even considered stylish until the 1920′s. I know, I know, that was 90 years ago but really, porcelain skin was all the rage before that. A lot healthier if you ask me. No skin cancer to worry about because everyone was inside trying NOT to get tan. Embrace you beautiful skin y’all!
People always tell me that I need to go and get a tan or at least get out in the sun, but I’m perfectly happy with my pale skin.
So what I’m the palest in my school? It’s another thing that sets me apart, and if there’s one thing I like to do, it’s to stand out from everyone else, not be part of the “main crowd”.
“Snow White and the Huntsman”…..”Mirror Mirror”….with all the Snow White movies coming out, I’d say pallor is making a comeback.
Also being pale makes it really easy to rock a Goth-glam look. I’m the whitest person I know, and I do it all the time
I have the same problem, I have to get the lightest make up shade and my friends all call me vampire, milk, ghost. They even make comments like, “I’m blind!” when I where shorts. Even though it doesn’t hurt my feelings, it does get annoying sometimes. But I learned to love my white skin because, like you, I have red hair and I would look very strange with tan skin. I’m proud to have such white skin now.
This has really helped. I can be outside for no more than 5 minutes and it looks like I’m dinner at red lobster. It’s horrible. The worst part is- it doesn’t turn into a tan. I just end up very pale. But, I’ve learned that pale can be beautiful- thanks to you.
Haha this makes me feel better
I’m always so pale compared to everyone it’s crazy, and I always want to hide my legs because of how pale (and thick) they are. I was thinking about doing some sort of spray tan or something, but I knew it would just come out gross. I don’t want to blend in, but I think I’d feel more comfortable with a tiny bit tanner legs, so I’m trying some of that Jergen’s tan lotion stuff, but not the oil kind of stuff just lotion which has SPF in it. I’m not sure if it works yet. But thanks for this article, I’m not alone (:
I have really pale skin but I’ve recently learned to embrace it. A lot of tan people (I’m not bashing tan people or saying this is the opinion of all darker skinned people) think sunscreen isn’t necessary, but having to coat it on all the time I realize how amazing our skin will be later on in life. I won’t be meeting skin cancer of crazy wrinkles on my watch. (:
At school and out of all my friends, im the whitest by far! i just cant seem to accept im white and i cant get a tan! but i just wish i could be tanned instead of being called ‘casper’ and everything. Being tanned would be amazing, but fake tans look orange so im not sure about getting that, anything else i could do? please help.
No big deal, you should meet a guy like me, I’m so white I’m almost albino so we have a lot in common. I would take you to the beach, lather each other down with lotion, and just enjoy each other. One thing I’ve found out at the beach, nobody cares if you’re white. So don’t let it bother you.
I am a brown girl and naturally tanned,during my school years I was like mummy please let me use something to lighten my skin to be more like yours!!(my mummy is really pale!),but then,as I grow up older i realized that my golden skin is a blessing!!and now I’m thankful for that!
Remember girls:you are who you are!dont change yourself!you are beautiful with your pale,brown,black,…skin!
I’m a black girl and I really love the way porcelain skin looks, especially with dark hair. But honestly, I would never change my skin tone for anything. I love it. I can honestly say I love ALL skin tones. And while I agree that many dark-skinned girls want to be lighter, I think the use of lightening-creams is not as common as you think it is.
Naturally dark girls use creams to be LIGHTER not paler. One of my best friends has dark skin and she says she wants to be light skinned like Beyoncé not pale like Robert Pattison. U can be dark and pale. These editors r slow sometimes.
Its so annoying when people say pale skin is ugly, disgusting or see a pale girl and say that she needs to get a tan. As the writer says, believing any skin colour is better than another is stupid, and can border on being racist. All skin colours are beautiful when we take care of our skin the right way, and frying in the sun isn’t actually doing that.
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Thanks for the article, we need more of this. We are beautiful
Rejoice in your white skin! I’m very Dominican, and when I was a kid, all I wanted in the whole world was to be pale. I’ve embraced my tan skin though, one perk being that sunscreen is not nessecary
Sunscreen is necessary for ANY SKIN TONE. U can still get tanned and u could get skin cancer. DUH
I don’t think so Jem, have you ever heard of a black skinned person getting skin cancer? Only super whities need to worry about that.