6 Reasons Not To Hate Your Vitiligo Skin

Last Updated on 10th July 2023 by Caroline Haye

Where would we be without our skin?

It’s funny the things you think about when you are lying in the bath. While I was soaking my almost-back-to-normal skin in relaxing, hot water this morning, I remembered the thoughts that used to occupy my mind back when I still had severe vitiligo. When you are naked is an obvious time to think about your skin. And I’m ashamed to admit that the sight of mine sometimes used to cause me feelings of frustration, depression and even loathing. I hope you never feel that way about any aspect of yourself. But, in case you do, here are my 6 reasons not to hate your vitiligo skin. I hope you’ll find them thought-provoking.

1. It’s much too big to hate!

If you absolutely must hate something about your appearance try to find something small. A pimple is a good bet. Or maybe a slightly crooked tooth. But please don’t choose your skin. I mean, it’s just too darn big to hate. It may only be a few millimetres thick. But, it covers an amazing 2 square metres (some 20 or so square feet) on average. And that makes it the largest organ in your body. (Unless you count the small intestine which, astonishingly, manages to cram in a surface area 15 to 20 times greater). Believe it or not, a person’s skin weighs around 3.6 kilograms (roughly 8 pounds). And, aside from a few well-placed inlets and outlets for air, food and waste products, it covers every single part of your body… Even your eye balls every time you blink. 😉

2. Your skin is your armour

Your skin keeps the outside world out and your insides in. That’s pretty important. If you weren’t so exquisitely wrapped in this miraculous material called skin, all sorts of nasties would seep into your body. And your innards would pretty swiftly end up in a sticky, untidy pile on the floor. Seriously, your skin is your packaging and your protection against environmental hazards.

Just like cling film, skin keeps germs and other foreign matter out and contents in their proper place. It is waterproof and yet maintains moisture levels. Skin shields you from radiation. It regulates your temperature, manufactures vitamin D in response to sunshine, and gets rid of toxins. And it’s your armour against knocks and scrapes.

3. Your personal “ecosystem” relies on your skin

Your skin is the surface of planet You. (Now, that’s what I call a heavenly body.) It’s your soil, rock and oceans all rolled into one. It’s your living, breathing earth’s crust. To put it another way, if your body was a building, your skin would not only be the walls, roof and floor, forming a barrier with the outside world. It would also be the insulation, air conditioning, temperature control and waste disposal system all in one. Your internal environment, your inner ecosystem, relies on your skin to keep it working and habitable.

4. What other material is flexible, self-repairing, adaptable and lasts a lifetime?

The membrane that covers your muscles, skeleton and internal organs has astonishing properties. No synthetic material, no matter how high-tech, comes close. It is tough, yet soft. And it allows us to move around without cracking or tearing. It expands and contracts as required. Growing with us as we mature into adulthood, our skin can stretch and shrink as we gain or lose weight… Even when we make extra room inside for babies… who then also come wrapped in their own miraculous packaging.

Skin adapts quickly and efficiently to varying temperatures and UV levels. And, if it becomes damaged, it has a remarkable capacity to repair itself. Not only that, but it constantly regenerates by producing new cells. What other material is there that does this? This means it is always brand new, even decades after it was first manufactured. It literally lasts a lifetime.

5. Skin is sensational: how would you feel without it?

If you asked 100 people in the street to name the five senses, I wonder how many of them would start with touch. I’m guessing a minority. Sight and hearing would probably be the first two that come to mind, with touch, smell and taste all jostling for position in the last three. Maybe this is because we tend to think of sight and sound as being the two main ways we interact with the world around us. But did you know that touch is the first sense a baby develops in the womb? And when was the last time you thought about how many different ways we experience this sense?

The sensations of pleasure, pain, heat, cold and texture are all communicated to our brain via nerve endings in our skin. Not to mention our ability to navigate and manipulate the material world that we live in. Without the sensors in our skin we couldn’t enjoy the touch of our loved ones. We would have no warning system to alert us to the danger of extreme temperature. And we wouldn’t know whether or not we were making contact with that kitchen knife we are trying to pick up. Or whether that carrot we are trying to chop is really one of our fingers.

6. You’ve got to love something that awesome

Whatever colour (or combination of colours) your skin is, you’ve got to admit it is awesome. It envelopes you and keeps you safe. It is a living, breathing, durable, stretchy, cushioned, self-mending miracle suit of armour. A three-tiered fabric, woven from self-replicating cells, each with a specific purpose. The home of millions of fat and protein cells, blood vessels, hair follicles, nerve endings, sweat glands, oil glands and, yes, of pigment too.

OK, your pigment may be a bit haywire. It may even be a lot haywire, like mine was. But your skin is still jaw-droppingly brilliant. It still works amazingly hard for you every single moment of every day of your life. So next time you lie in the bath tub, staring at the white patches on your skin, I hope you will think kindly of it. Thank it for everything it does and forgive it its foibles… Just as you forgive your best friends theirs. And any time you feel frustrated, depressed or angry about your wacky pigment, focus your mind on all the reasons there are not to hate your vitiligo skin. I’ve given you a few. And I’m sure you can think of a few more besides.