It is 8:15 A.M., and I hop out of my Lyft and walk through the iced-over snow and mud to enter the set for a photo shoot. There is always a woman greeting me. “Are you LaTonya?!” she asks. I answer yes. I arrive with my fro halfway twisted out and my face bare. At twenty-eight, my skin color is uneven and there is a patch of hormonal acne that I birthed along with Oak in the summer of 2014. “Clean face.” When production sends out the call sheet for a shoot, this is what they often request. They check the color of my nails and the style of my hair, but the face part gets me the most.
This photo was taken by my dad during my first tennis lesson. I was nervous about wearing a dress and kind of refused to at first because I was self-conscious about my vitiligo. To make me feel better, my mom put makeup on my knees and face, and I felt so incredibly confident. The racket she got me was customized from Fingerhut, and I remember thinking, she put so much effort into this.
This is a routine I’ve executed many times over the past two years, as my blog and overall brand have grown, often creating an illusion of a glamorous life. The makeup artist comments on my cheekbones, and she adds shine to my eyelids and tint to my lips. And for a few hours, I forget about the girl with vitiligo. This is a far cry from the evenings I spent as a kid sobbing over the white patches that plagued my joints and my face. Vitiligo was not only something that altered the way I looked, but altered the way that I defined beauty.
Vitiligo is a medical condition that causes skin to turn white with the loss of melanocyte cells, which produce melanin. It is considered an autoimmune disorder (which can pair itself with another disorder soon after diagnosis or later in life), and it can arrive without reason. Some doctors and researchers believe that it is genetic; some believe it can be brought on by emotional distress. Vitiligo can be focal and localized, or it may affect several different areas on the body. The average age vitiligo appears in someone is twenty-five. Twenty-five. For me, it appeared in 1996. I was a seven-year-old, fifty-pound black girl turning white without warning or cause.
It all started when the corners of my mouth started to ache when I smiled. Initially, there were whispers, then adults would comment abrasively. Kids were dumb. Adults were assholes. Once I was in the checkout line at a Family Dollar store when a woman approached me and asked, “Awww, were you burned?” “No,” I answered, half expecting the conversation to end there, but knowing that it never could. “Well, what is that?” That! Why did I need to explain something I hardly understood? One beautiful summer day, before the white started to move under my eyes, I sat in the backseat of my mother’s car, refusing to step a foot out of it. The process was indescribably painful in varying degrees. “It just really hurts in the sun!” I cried, as our car drove into the sun’s path. I felt the heat of the sun. I felt the sting of the vitiligo.
The ache around my mouth turned to ash, and the ash crawled its way to the sides of my mouth, forming a beard. It wasn’t stark, but it was obvious to me and those near to me. Over the course of a few weeks, the ash started to peel away, exposing a white complexion, like a slab of meat coming off the bone. Soon after, the process began on my joints. Patches started to cover my knees, elbows, ankles, and eventually my knuckles. The faded speckles on my shin and foot proved that maybe the vitiligo wasn’t as biased as I once had hoped. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes real tight, I imagined myself as a paper doll, full of color, with someone taking an eraser and diligently going to work on my body. First, they rubbed out my face, then they started on my knees and slowly moved to my ankles. At seven, I was being erased.
This was taken after school during middle school when I was doing homework at the kitchen table. I’m wearing my layered Bazooka shirt and have flat-ironed bangs. I used to bump them really big and put my hair in a tight ponytail.
I was bullied, but I was a fighter. I’m not sure which came first. Two feet on the ground. Hip out. Fist tight. Cover the face. Wrap the hair around the right. Left hook. One September, when we lived in Long Island with my cousin, my uncle gave me a piece of fighting advice right before school began, anticipating the acclimation we were about to be presented with: “If they’re big, hit them in the gut. The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” he said, creating a stance and pointing to key spots on his body. I’m not sure if he was right, but my mind held on to that technique. My older brothers had spent years fighting, too. Maybe it was seeing how they needed to defend themselves that made throwing up my hands in pure animalistic survival mode a bit easier.
Once, at recess, I had a full-blown panic attack, knowing the bully in my class just wanted to fight me. “She’s not going to let you ignore her. Before she comes to you, you should already have dirt in your hand to throw at her face so you can get the first hit,” my friend said, in an attempt to protect my gangly body. The dirt worked. There was the set of twins in the lunchroom one morning at cafeteria breakfast, the girl in the playground, the boy that I was crushing on (and someone I called a friend), who sent a torn piece of paper with the drawing of a cow around class. “This is LaTonya. Hahaha,” he wrote. And more.
My vitiligo was alive and visible but had become such a part of me that I subconsciously did things to hide it. If a stranger walked behind me, I’d naturally pose myself with crossed arms, so I wouldn’t show the chunks of white on my elbows. When I needed to hold a pen, or have my hands and knuckles be the center of attention, I’d avoid it by simply interlocking my fingers and turning my hands inside out. Or I’d pretend my hands were cold (even in the heat of summer) and tuck the right one between my thighs, and my left hand under my left thigh. You would never see me willingly walk in front of anyone. I was too afraid they’d whisper about the white patches. I alternated between jeans and capris in the sweltering summer heat, and I either rolled up the sleeves of long-sleeved shirts or gravitated to three-quarter-length sleeves. I disliked every kid from ages four to eleven who was in the strange stage of life between not knowing better and knowing better, but would still loudly comment about my skin to their parents anyway.
This was taken the day I graduated high school. When I moved back to New York, my mother and grandmother sent me to a small Christian academy in Brooklyn. I’m wearing a full face of MAC makeup, and, for once, have semi-straight hair.
In 2006, my family moved back to New York to settle here for good. There is something about New York that allows you to be simultaneously invisible and visible. As a teenager returning to a big city when vitiligo was such a large part of my physical features, there was a part of me that needed that invisibility. But, equally, there was a part of me that craved to be visible in a healthier form. To be seen simply as a New York teenager, not a New York teenager with vitiligo. But I couldn’t take on this city the way I needed to with my vitiligo being this thing that created a story for me. I had to do something.
We were with my grandmother in her Classon Avenue apartment when I finally opened up to my mother about my fear of living in Brooklyn with my vitiligo. Soon after, my mother took me downtown to Fulton Street, where a cluster of mom-and-pop stores blended with jewelry store after jewelry store run by men layered in gold necklaces and rings, hustling deals in front and passing out flyers. We dodged the guys with CDs on the street, and I heard Christian music blasting from the man at the fold-out table a block or so away from McDonald’s. There was Conway (my grandmother’s favorite), Cookie’s, and Jimmy Jazz, too. My mom and I made our way into Macy’s, passing through the bags, cornering around the cloud of perfume, and eventually stopping at the makeup counter. “This is what Angela uses,” my mom said with confidence. Angela was one of my mom’s best friends, who had vitiligo and lupus. I remember her as southern, frail, beautiful, incredibly warm, supportive, and frequently ill. She passed away a few years later. It wasn’t just the vitiligo I feared; it was knowing that the vitiligo often led to lupus—sickness—an early mortality.
“You need two different shades. One for your knees and another for your face,” the lady at the counter said. “Show her so she can do it herself,” my mom requested. “Just blend,” the lady chimed in as I applied it from my laugh lines to my cheekbones. I also needed a setting powder, so we bought it. And I needed brushes, so we bought those, too. I knew how to apply makeup already. Most mornings I’d perch myself on the toilet and watch as my mother readied herself for work. And so, my own routine of eye shadow, eyeliner, and Dermablend was something I did with ease. With the makeup, I assimilated to life as a young woman in Brooklyn quickly and naturally. Soon after Macy’s, I started to straighten my hair, I rode the B52 bus from Bushwick through Bed-Stuy, and heard my grandmother playfully say, like she always had whenever we found ourselves standing in her kitchen together, “Brooklyn girls. Best in the world!”
From the summer of 2009, wearing cut-off capris in McCarren Park in Brooklyn. Later that summer I got more comfortable with not covering up my vitiligo so much. But it took work. I would ride that cruiser everywhere, but I hardly wore a helmet because it would flatten out my bowl cut.
That afternoon at Macy’s was something my mother and I both needed and loved. It was an intersection of my beauty and my pain, and the parts of it that she carried as my mother. The first few years after the vitiligo appeared, my mother had me experiment with diets the doctors said might help. Organic jams, soy milk, and alternative cereals—spelled out on a paper hung on the fridge. They also suggested that she change my environment; stress and trauma from our home had likely brought it on. The same doctors said that the vitiligo was likely not going to progress, but would stay the same or get better with care and a stress-free environment. They warned against the sun, so I became accustomed to wearing oversize sun hats and lathering with sunblock. In 2008, after a year or so in Brooklyn, I stopped using the layers of Dermablend and went straight to MAC, because my vitiligo had started to clear on its own. My MAC shimmer foundation blended best with the orange undertone of my skin. I used it as a spot treatment, only lightly covering the faded notes of vitiligo that remained on my face. And in the summer of 2010, I stopped covering my elbows and ankles with seasonally inappropriate clothes.
Occasionally, when I’m stressed for long periods of time, I get a glimpse of that seven-year-old girl in the form of a random white patch. She is standing right there looking at me. Having vitiligo as a kid created a version of beauty that is complicated and joyful. There is rarely a week that goes by that I don’t remember the six-, seven-, or eight-year-old version of myself that is in pain. To be reminded of that level of trauma, while still being so incredibly thankful that the vitiligo has subsided, is to also be made aware of my own joy. My sensitivity to the physical “otherness” of strangers is something I can’t erase. I don’t want to.
The camera keeps clicking. I smile as wide as I naturally do, and I am told I was made for the camera. My skin shines. My face is photogenic. “You’re a pro!” they say. Vitiligo is not something you talk about in between call sheets and bare-face requests. I don’t think my seven-year-old self would have thought of such a thing.
5 Rules
for
Supporting
Your Child
through
Bullying
1. Get to know the parents and kids in your child’s school. Make yourself as present as possible. Teachers, other parents, and your child are less willing to ignore inappropriate behavior when there is parental visibility.
2. Have in-depth, casual, and thoughtful conversations about school days and activities. Make them the core of recentering you and your child and what he/she may be going through at any given time.
3. Without pressure, reaffirm any physical and emotional boundaries, so that if there are boundaries crossed that seem particularly harmful, your child feels more inclined to discuss them.
4. Keep the opportunity open for conversations between your child and another adult without you. Sometimes kids don’t tell parents things, but will tell another safe adult. Let the other adult know that they can reaffirm this relationship with your child without your presence, allowing conversations and trust to develop.
5. Clearly divide acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior by bullies. The goal is to avoid having your child internalize the inappropriate and painful behavior of others.
My morning makeup routine has transitioned from being several minutes long to only two minutes. This has been partly because I apply less makeup than I used to, but also because I now have two children I have to get ready in the mornings. I feel most comfortable in my skin knowing its history. I feel most comfortable with the way I can bring out the natural features of my face with these few short steps.
1 Cleanse. I use CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser, just water, or Thayers Witch Hazel to tone and refresh my skin. My face is naturally oily, and from years of having vitiligo, I’ve become used to not cleaning my face with various commercial products. While doctors didn’t explicitly say that I shouldn’t use products, the reversal of my vitiligo (combined with naturally acne-free skin) left me resistant to using anything that wasn’t natural. If I do want a deeper clean, I skip the CeraVe and use a clean oil (like grapeseed or jojoba) with water.
2 Moisturize. Despite having more oily skin, I still moisturize after cleansing every morning and evening. I go between using a few drops of jojoba oil and CeraVe Facial Moisturizing Lotion (with SPF) or Drunk Elephant B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Gel.
3 Conceal. For under my eyes, I use Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer. I apply a few strokes, then blend with my finger going down.
4 Spot (Im)Perfection. Oftentimes I don’t mind, and then sometimes I do. When I want to cover the remaining vitiligo spots, or just even out my skin tone overall, I use MAC Mineralize Moisture with SPF. I just use a drop and apply where I feel is necessary. Normally, there are just two to three spots around my mouth.
5 Glow. In general, I like to look as natural as possible, and for me that means pumping up my natural shine and skin tone. To help with this, I use Fenty Beauty Match Stix Shimmer Skinstick in “Sinamon” for my cheekbones and eyelids.
6 Brows and lashes. I haven’t waxed or plucked my eyebrows in about two years, so they’re naturally a bit wild. To help with this, I use Glossier’s Boy Brow to fill in my eyebrows a bit more and to help lay the stray hairs down.
I keep my eyelashes simple and go for the CoverGirl mascara I get at Target. I’ve used it since I was fifteen, and it has never failed me!
7 Lips. The color of my lips is close to the shade of my skin, so I either go natural or bold. Most days when I’m rushing out the door, I’ll use a bit of Carmex and be on my way.
I first met Anja through our mutual friend Scosha Woolridge. Scosha spoke so incredibly highly of her, I really couldn’t wait to meet her. And when we did meet, we immediately clicked. Anja is a wordsmith, Saturday-brunch champion (and impeccable host), and a single mother to her four-year-old daughter, Matilda, among other titles. Whether our discussions are about motherhood, fashion, Brooklyn, relationships, racism, or being biracial, I come away still sizzling from them. Here is our conversation.
LY What was your definition of beauty as a child?
AT I loved old movies from the fifties and sixties when I was a kid, and I fell in love with Audrey Hepburn when I was nine or ten years old. I have definitely always been attracted to this sort of effortless, gamine version of beauty. I have never found loads of makeup very attractive. What’s beautiful to me is as much about what is emanating from you as it is what you are wearing on your face. In retrospect, my beauty standards as a child were very white. When I first started wearing makeup recreationally, I was about twelve, and my mother bought me Cindy Crawford’s new makeup book, Basic Face, which was basically this tutorial about everything you could want to know about wearing makeup in the year 1996. I remember turning to the page about face shapes and looking at the page, then looking in the mirror, then looking at the page again and realizing I didn’t see anything in there that looked like me.
LY As an adult, how have these definitions changed?
AT I think that my beauty standards as an adult woman are much less self-loathing now. I am not comparing myself to blond supermodels with perfect skin these days, and I am much happier for it. But the basic tenet of what I believe is beautiful is still the same, and it’s part of what I feel makes women so beautiful to begin with. I love clothing and dress and comportment and makeup and scent and all of these things . . . but I truly believe they are all accessories to your inner beauty, which is something everyone can see no matter what you cover it with. I love a beautiful, genuine smile, a woman holding her child, looks of surprise, the way women look when they are not posing for other people—even if they’re just carrying groceries on the subway or getting out of a taxi or something. Confidence to live your life and be yourself and not hold back out of fear or concern for other people’s opinions is the most beautiful—and probably also the sexiest—thing I can imagine. Whenever I catch myself being too self-conscious I try to take a breath, shake it out, and start again.
LY Were you bullied as a kid? How did you channel that?
AT Relentlessly. I am biracial but extremely light-skinned, which was really difficult for kids to understand in the eighties and nineties. We forget how much the world has changed and opened up in the last few decades, but in 1994, when I was ten, I distinctly remember being asked by some kid if my orthodontia was what was “making my lips so big.” And I was like . . . “No, it’s because my dad is black.” [rolls eyes]
I still have a lot of trust issues from being bullied so much as a child, both with new people and with people I am already very close to. It had a major impact on my self-esteem and confidence for a very long time. . . . But being bullied is also what gave me my drive, my competitive spirit, and my very, very close personal relationship with myself. I think there are a lot of things in each of our lives that we’d rather not have experienced, but for me this has become a part of my past that makes me indomitable for the future.
LY Are there any beauty rituals that speak to both the inner and outer versions of you?
AT My biggest and most time-consuming ritual is flat-ironing my hair weekly. I do it myself. I never go to a salon, and it’s a very time-intensive process that means spending a lot of time with myself on a regularly recurring basis. I don’t get a lot of “me time” in my life, so what used to be a tedious and tiresome ritual has turned into my self-care moment for each week, which has made me resent it much less. My hair has been through a lot, both physically and spiritually, and weekly I have to come to terms with that. And it means I can never get too far away from myself, because I have been battling with this hair since I was a little kid, and there it is . . . still sitting on top of my head, causing trouble, keeping me on my toes.
LY What are some lessons you hope Matilda learns in the day-to-day from you?
AT People talk about parenting like it’s the SATs. Like you cram for it while you’re pregnant and then when you give birth you have all the tools already and you just spend the rest of your life raising a human with those same tools. But in reality, it’s more like the Hunger Games. There is literally no way to tell what’s going to happen in either of your lives, and you don’t stop developing as a person once you’ve had a kid. . . . Part of me hopes that Matilda skips all of the nonsense of feeling insecure or ugly that I went through. . . . She’s a very cute kid, but beyond her looks she just emanates light. The way people react to her is amazing, and this all gives me so much hope that she will know from a much younger age than I did that her beauty starts within. And I think that will change the landscape of her experience as an awkward preteen or as a twenty-something girl making a ton of mistakes (there is no other kind of twenty-something girl). I don’t know how much I have to teach her about beauty, but my hope is that I can be an attentive gardener to her spirit, and that as she grows and blossoms into herself through her whole life, I will be given the time and the presence to help her through those phases.
