Something about me

Hello beauties!

I’m going a little off track because I want to talk about something that I have been putting off.  I have a skin condition called Vitiligo and this post is all about me and what I’ve gone through.

The Mayo Clinic definition of Vitiligo is:

 Vitiligo (vit-ih-LI-go) is a condition in which your skin loses melanin, the pigment that determines the color of your skin, hair and eyes. Vitiligo occurs when the cells that produce melanin die or no longer form melanin, causing slowly enlarging white patches of irregular shapes to appear on your skin. Vitiligo affects all races, but may be more noticeable in people with darker skin. Vitiligo usually starts as small areas of pigment loss that spread with time. 

What this means is that I have two skin tones and my appearance is very different from most everyone else.

I was diagnosed with Vitiligo when I was five years old and the doctors started me on a treatment regimen with UV lights to try to stop the progression, but it didn’t work.  There are all kinds of treatments and so called cures out there but there is no cure. 

It hasn’t been easy living with this condition because I look different and when a person looks different people tend to judge and make fun so school was not easy for me.  I used to get teased and picked on because I looked different from all the other girls.  I cried…a lot.  All I ever wanted as a young girl was to fit in. Every morning I would wake up thinking that would be the day that I will be accepted and no one is going to care what my skin looked like and it did happen but not until High School. 

So by now you are probably asking how is this makeup or beauty related?”  I’m getting to that.

In high school I only wore black eyeliner and as I got older, I wanted to experiment with makeup to see if I could even out my skin tone to make it one color so I would walk the makeup aisle in the drug store and have no clue what to do with any of that stuff so I would leave the store.  It wasn’t until I went to Macy’s and got color matched at Clinique that a whole new world was opened to me and as the saying goes, the rest is history.   I’ve tried a lot of different brands including Clinique and Prescriptive, looking for that full coverage foundation that would cover up my skin.  It wasn’t until I tried Laura Mercier’s Tinted Moisturizer that I began to understand that I didn’t have to cover up my skin to make myself look good for other people to accept me.  It took up too much time, too much money and I just rather not.

What I’m trying to say here is that no matter what anyone says, you are beautiful just the way you are.   Believe it or not, layers and layers of heavy, full coverage makeup aren’t necessary.  Let your beautiful skin breathe and shine through.

I didn’t learn that until later in life.  I was using makeup as a mask to try and look how I wanted everyone else to see me by using full coverage makeup that felt heavy on my skin, but even though I really didn’t like how that felt, I used it for years, even in the hot summer months.  It took me a long time to realize that I can’t change the colors of my skin and even though I’m not crazy about having two skin tones, I can live with it.  I either embrace it or continue with the losing battle.  So now on weekends, I go out with a BB cream or no makeup at all, not even mascara.  For work, I still use foundation but not heavy feeling makeup, its either a BB cream, tinted moisturizer, or a medium coverage.

My skin is very dry so I need moisture wherever I can get it including in my foundation.  I use is the Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer in Porcelain or the L’Oreal True Match Lumi in n1-2 and because I’ve lost pigment in 80% of my body, I’m color matched to my lighter skin tone, not the darker one.  Yes, the color is too light for some parts of my face but I’ve learned to pick my battles.  I’ve also learned to accept the Vitiligo because it’s not going away, it part of who I am.  I love make up and I don’t use it to hide anymore.  You can too.

Don’t get me wrong, I have my days where I can’t stand looking in the mirror but it doesn’t last long.

I’m hoping to make this a place where I can share my experiences in finding the right products with you, taking into consideration my dry, two skin toned skin. J

Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say.

Update: If you have been recently diagnosed with Vitiligo, check out these websites: mayoclinic.org; webmd.com; aad.org (American Academy of Dermatology

‘Til next time,

Memi