Last Updated on 15th November 2019 by Caroline Haye
As summer approaches, the prospect of those lazy, hazy days ahead can be daunting. At least, they can for anyone with vitiligo. The fact that the rest of the world is eagerly anticipating its many pleasures just makes matters worse. Warm weather, swimming, barbecues and outdoor pursuits should all be fun. But the problem of how to hide your vitiligo during this season is a tricky one. One solution is to use a self-tanning product as camouflage. So I’d like to share a story of self-tanning with you and hope it will be useful.
The story behind the story of self-tanning
I honestly don’t believe that vitiligo sufferers are any more given to self-pity or paranoia than the rest of the population. But it’s only to be expected that we should occasionally feel a twinge of envy when we see all those evenly-tanned bodies out there. Especially as their owners seem oblivious to their good fortune in having a healthy share of pigment. And it does take a great deal of self-control not to sometimes wonder why God singled you out. Why you should be the one person in a hundred who has to shun the sun? Is it fair that you should have to reach for more clothes and more makeup the hotter the weather becomes? Especially when all you really want to do (more than anything else in the world) is put on a swim suit and lie by the pool with everyone else.
Some brave souls now do what I never did in all the years I had vitiligo: they “come out”. Largely, I believe, thanks to social media. The various online communities provide an opportunity for mutual support and safety in numbers. And many people with vitiligo now feel more comfortable baring their white patches for the entire world to see. I admire these people more than I can say.
But I know, from many years of personal experience, that not everyone feels able to come out of the “vitiligo closet”. And, for those people, a valuable part of their coping strategy is to cover up and avoid the curious gaze and inevitable questions of others.
Using self-tan as vitiligo camouflage
One way of doing this is to use a self-tan on the white patches. The idea being to lessen the contrast with the surrounding skin or even camouflage the vitiligo completely. How successful this can be depends on the individual’s natural skin tone and the particular product they choose.
I applied my first ever self-tan decades before the concept became a commercial reality. I was only about 7 years old when I came up with the idea of using cold teabags to stain my white skin to the same colour as the rest of me. The trick was, of course, to brew the teabags (and drink the tea!). Then to let the bags cool before squeezing them. This removed some of the excess moisture. I then dabbed the residue onto my skin. Once dry, the stain was quite effective. But it had two major drawbacks. The tan washed off as soon as it came into contact with water. And my skin smelled strongly of English Breakfast. (Or Darjeeling, Earl Grey or whatever the infusion of the day was.)
The problem with commercial self-tans
Of course, once proper self-tans hit the high street I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. They were a life-saver during the summer months; without them, I think I would have become a hermit. My favourite was St Tropez because it had a colour guide. This made it easier to apply to the white patches without streaking or straying too badly onto the surrounding skin. Also, it was less orange and a little less stinky than most other self-tans on the market… and it lasted a few days longer than the teabags!
However, as I learned more about the underlying causes of depigmentation I realised I might be making matters worse. Repeatedly applying products containing numerous synthetic chemicals was not a great idea. In fact, it was likely to increase the already elevated levels of hydrogen peroxide on my skin. And to increase the oxidative stress that researchers now know contributes to the development of vitiligo.
Happily, I have almost fully re-pigmented over the past few years. (Thanks to a nutritional treatment that I accidentally found worked for me.) But I still have some mottled white areas on my hands and feet which I prefer to camouflage during the summer. Since I have turned my back on the chemical-based self-tans, I once again decided to improvise with something natural. But this time I chose something that would last a few days longer than tea. And that doesn’t create a craving for scones and cream every time you smell it: henna. People have been using henna as a natural hair dye and for decorative tattoos for centuries. So why shouldn’t it work as a self-tan too? Well, it does (up to a point). And I’ll explain how to go about applying it in part 2 of this blog post. 🙂
