Last Updated on 13th May 2022 by Caroline Haye
The weird and wonderful world of skin colour: part 1
It’s a pleasantly warm morning here in the north of England. (Yes, we really do get them sometimes.) But there is still some hazy cloud cover. So I am doing what I often do when I am at home this time of the year… When it’s not sunny enough to work on my tan. I’m deep in blog research mode. And this week I’m looking into the weird and wonderful world of skin colour. It’s a big topic, so this will be a mini-series… Starting with the question: how transparent are you?
Sometimes I have a very clear idea of what I want to write about. And other times – like today – I just see where Google takes me. I currently have no less than eighteen tabs open on my browser. Because I keep jumping from one fascinating subject to another and back again. And, as I do so, my topic for this week slowly starts to reveal itself… Rather like a new patch of vitiligo emerging gradually from the surrounding skin until it is fully formed!
I have written before about how amazingly diverse human skin colours and types are. And about some of the many factors that influence this diversity. But it is a massive subject. And today I find myself ricocheting off it in several intriguing directions at once (hence the many tabs). So, to avoid confusing you, or myself, by tackling all of them at once, I will explore each topic separately over the next few weeks.
I shall have no difficulty in making part 1 of this series very clear… Literally… Because it is all about transparency.
How can skin be transparent?
I never used to think in terms of skin being either transparent or opaque. My professional background is in image consultancy and colour analysis. So the uniqueness of each individual’s colouring has always interested me. But I thought in terms of depth, clarity and undertone. In other words, whether a person’s colouring was deep, light, bright, soft, warm or cool. How opaque their skin was didn’t really come into it. (Although I think some colour analysts nowadays do take this into account when advising their clients on clothing and makeup).
What set me off thinking about the transparency, or otherwise, of skin was seeing this amazing picture of a newly discovered species of “Glass Frog” from Central America.
Being able to see its internal organs through the skin is a very visual reminder of the fact that skin is the living packaging that keeps our insides in and the external world out. And, while no human on earth (as far as I know) has such remarkably see-through packaging as this little Costa Rican creature, it is certainly true to say that human skin can also possess translucency. The best way I can describe it is to say that some people’s skin looks like a delicate water colour… Whereas others’ is more like an oil painting.
This seems to be true of all races although, in general, the darker the skin the more opaque it is likely to be. Some very fair-skinned white people have such a delicate skin that their veins are visible through it, whilst others are just as fair but completely opaque and this can also be the case with black and Asian skin tones: some have a sheer luminosity behind them and others are more “solid”. Some people with translucent skin are unhappy with how “thin” their skin looks but, personally, I find all combinations of skin colour and opacity equally beautiful.
Having both opaque and transparent skin
What is a bit weirder though is when a person has both types of skin at once, which is what can happen if you have vitiligo. Over the years, as my vitiligo developed, the white patches became the water colour (i.e. translucent) and the normal skin was the oil paint. (Since my normal skin tone is quite opaque). This was especially apparent when I tried to camouflage the white areas. I noticed that the depth and tone of the camouflage were not the only characteristics to consider in choosing a suitable product. It also had to have the right texture in order to add opacity to the translucent vitiligo patch.
Oprah Winfrey’s description of Michael Jackson’s appearance is an example of the way in which a lack of pigment increases the transparency of a person’s skin. She says, “Anybody who knew Michael Jackson will tell you that when you are up close to him—he had absolutely no pigmentation in his skin—you are looking at his veins when you look at his hand. You are seeing through to the blue veins, and they’re very, very apparent… You’re looking at a person who is almost translucent.”
My gradual repigmentation over the past few years has been even more interesting in this respect than the original depigmentation process because of all the varied levels of opacity I have observed on the patches as they regained their colour. In particular, the blue veins on my feet and hands, inner wrists and underside of my arms were very conspicuous when the pigment went. It was a bit like looking at seaweed from a glass bottom boat!
My repigmentation
But, when the pigment started to come back, it did so in two completely different ways. Some of it returned as opaque freckles on the still translucent background, almost like barnacles on the boat’s window. But in other areas the whole vitiligo patch gradually turned from translucent to more opaque, as if the boat had stirred up the sandy seabed creating a murky wash of colour. On the whole, these latter areas have a more even tone than the freckled ones because I didn’t have to wait for them to join up. However, the non-freckled patches of repigmentation have been slower to regain their opacity. And some (mainly on my hands and feet) have remained a little lighter than the rest of my skin… Though still very definitely flesh-coloured as opposed to white.
The freckled variety of repigmentation is quite common and can be split into three categories… Perifollicular, where tiny dots of pigment form at the site of the hair follicles… Marginal, where it forms at the outer borders of the vitiligo patches… And diffuse, where it occurs in freckles across the entire lesion. While most of mine has been diffuse, I cannot find a description for the gradual reappearance of uniform skin colour that I experienced on some areas of my body. So I have no idea whether this kind of repigmentation even has a name.
If anyone else has similar experiences of various styles of repigmentation I’d love to hear from you. Meanwhile, I’ll be back next week with part 2 of my Weird and Wonderful World of Skin Colour!
2 thoughts on “How transparent are you?”
Hey people thanks for sharing. I do suffer from vitiligo too since 2011 when the whole fiasco started and my one was diagnosed as a rare condition of vitiligo and had affected 90% of my body. It did not start like big white patches all over my body but it brought a very beautiful fair skin tone as if it was my birth colour. I was shocked to see my back through the mirror as if it was for somebody who was born white, the next thing I realised was that my whole body eg Arms, Hands,Breast, Face, Legs, Feet, Bums everywhere has turned white apart from my (inner thighs) they remained black, what happened was like a miracle, I wanted my black skin back, I pled with the dermatologist but I was told by it is impossible to be black again I have to wait for the inner thighs to be white too. Miraculously in 2013 my black skin began to emerge, not as a whole but in patches like big freckles on my face, my neck, my legs and my hands and arms with patches but my bums and boobs remained white, no spots whatsoever so I look like a white person turning black. The worse place is on my face where it got Very Very Darker than it was before and then it gave me white pea size spots. How do I hide my face from the public eyes? Impossible. I really don’t know what this is now neither do I know how to selfmedicate because I hear there’s no cure. So sad!!!
Thank you for sharing your amazing story. It sounds as if your loss of pigment was even worse than mine (mine was about 80% of my body). I’d be interested to know what percentage you are now that so much pigment has returned. I do feel for you because, whilst it is really exciting when you see you natural colour returning, the cosmetic problems it presents are difficult – especially, as you say, on your face. You are right that there is no cure yet for vitiligo but I managed to get about 98% of my colour back using nutritional supplements and sunshine, so I can recommend that from my own personal experience. If you want to ask me anything about what I did feel free to email me – info@thevitpro.com . Otherwise, maybe the rest of your pigment will return on its own given a bit more time. (The whole process in my case took about a year and a half to reach 90% repigmentation, and the rest returned gradually over another year or so.)