Learning to Love My Skin Tone

I used to think of my skin tone as something to work around. Something to match. Something to lighten, correct, bronze, even out. Growing up, every compliment about beauty seemed to favor skin tones lighter than mine. Every magazine ad, every makeup shade that didn’t quite work, every “you’re pretty for your complexion” left an imprint.

I never disliked my skin—I just never saw it celebrated. And so, like many, I absorbed a quiet message: blend in until you can pass for something else.

It took years—and a lot of unlearning—to realize that the issue wasn’t my skin tone. It was the lens through which I’d been taught to view it.

Beauty Standards Aren’t Neutral

For a long time, I tried to match the palette I saw reflected back at me. The “nude” lipstick that wasn’t nude for me. The foundations that turned ashy or orange. The lighting in fitting rooms that made my skin look dull.

These weren’t just inconveniences—they were messages. They said: you’re not the standard. They made it harder to see my tone as something beautiful, let alone desirable.

But slowly, I started finding representation that felt real. Models, creators, and artists whose skin looked like mine—and not just in the background. I began to understand that beauty standards are built, not born. And they can be rebuilt, too.

The Turning Point: Seeing Myself in Full Light

The shift didn’t happen overnight. It started with a photo. A candid one, taken in golden light, where my skin looked alive, warm, dimensional. Not edited, not posed. Just me.

I didn’t rush to fix the lighting or smooth the texture. I paused. I looked again. And for the first time, I thought, this is what I actually look like—and it’s beautiful.

That moment broke something open. I realized I had been filtering myself through someone else’s standard. And I was ready to stop.

Color Is Not a Problem to Solve

I used to layer my face with tones meant to “fix” me—green to cancel redness, peach to hide darkness, powder to neutralize everything. But I wasn’t neutral. My skin had history, warmth, undertones that told a story.

Now, when I choose makeup, I choose it to enhance, not erase. I wear colors that amplify my natural tones, not mute them. I let my skin show through. I let it be expressive, changing with the seasons, the sunlight, the mood of the day.

Loving my skin tone meant accepting that it didn’t need to be altered. It needed to be seen.

Learning to Love Means Learning to See

I started noticing the way sunlight made my skin glow in ways no highlighter ever could. I started wearing colors I once avoided—yellows, reds, bold hues that I thought I “couldn’t pull off.” I started celebrating what once made me self-conscious: the contrast, the richness, the shade that deepened in the summer and cooled in the winter.

And as I embraced those things, my confidence shifted—not loudly, but steadily. I stopped looking for validation in shade matches and started finding it in my own reflection.

The Takeaway: You Don’t Have to Earn Your Own Beauty

You don’t have to wait for someone else to affirm that your skin is beautiful. You don’t have to adjust to be more acceptable. Your skin tone isn’t something to explain or soften or defend.

It’s part of your story. It holds your ancestry, your uniqueness, your light. And learning to love it doesn’t mean you love it every single day. It means you choose—again and again—to see it as worthy of care, celebration, and pride.

My skin doesn’t need to match a standard. It is the standard I live by now.