Don't get me wrong, but I love brown skin. I have brown skin or to put it simply, dark skin. And it took me 20 years before I could feel 'okay' about calling my skin color attractive.
I started loving my skin color when I started to feel attracted to women 'of color' as westerners would place it. But I really learned to take pride in my skin color when I moved abroad.
All those years of self-judging as a young teenager, I certainly felt that appearing fairer would make me prettier. This, even though I don't have anyone in my family or immediate entourage who has ever chastised or ridiculed the darker spectrum of skin color. I must have most undoubtedly picked it up from attending kindergarten where apparently the only pretty girls or boys were the fair ones. Of course, in that context as a child, I often asked myself: Did the world think I was ugly?
Still, I wondered about this throughout my young life.
But I guess that when you have a gorgeous Mom who endorses her skin color like anything and have aunts who never complained an ounce about wanting to be fairer or have men in your family who promised you that brains mattered more than anything else, these questions didn't get entirely through me.
"You’re beautiful in those bright colors.”
“You catch the light in interesting ways.”
There are many gorgeous light, brown, and dark-skinned women in the media whose examples encouraged me to unconditionally accept my own skin- not that any skin colour needs validation, but I'm not ashamed to admit that as the rest of the world, I have been an impressionable human of this planet as well.
I finally embrace my brown skin that is golden when it is hit by the sun. The skin that sparkles when tickled by the snow is versatile and unique. The blush pinks, the bright colors, and the light eye shadows are for me.
A study at Emory University found that photoshopped pictures of women with tans were deemed more attractive. This is not to condone dangerous tanning practices, but South Asian women are naturally blessed.
I just feel that a dusky complexion makes a woman look real, achievable and sensuous without looking unattainable and plastic. A dusky looking actress like Sara Jane Dias, Priyanka Chopra, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Diana Penty or Freida Pinto looks earthly and identifiable rather than ethereal or angelic. They have a certain “I am a woman, not an artifact” quality which exudes through their dusky complexion, making them stand out in all fairness.
There is something about well-moisturized, wheatish-colored skin that makes it look more supple, sexy, younger and flawless as compared to the fairer hue and unexcusably sensuous. The pigment melanin in our skin, that brings the darker color, actually has a number of properties that keeps you healthier than those with lighter skin tone.
Today people are in a rush to get themselves tanned or obtain a dusky complexion in order to stand out of the crowd and gather attention.
Some realistic facts about having dark skin:
Darker skin tone does help to hide redness.
People with darker skin have larger fat cushions underneath the skin, making them less prone to wrinkles and aging and are less skin cancer-prone.
Back home, if somebody said they found western ramps or fashion shows which constantly can only brandish some grayish tone clothing because colors- vivid ones make them look funky, interesting, we all would simply scoff. Have you ever seen the gorgeousness exuding off the stage when a person of colour with the ultimate grace poses or walks a ramp? Those Brazilians, Indians and Africans? Please.
