Dark, Daring and Unbought: Rewriting the rules of Skin Tones

✨ “Glow is not in fairness—it’s in owning the colour that carries your story. Wear your shade like a revolution, because loving your skin is the most radical protest of all.”

The Politics of Skin Tone: When the Mirror Became a Battlefield

For as long as I can remember, my skin introduced me before my name did.

Before anyone asked about my dreams or my favourite book, they noticed my shade—deep brown, sunlit, unapologetic. Sometimes they said it outright:

“Don’t stay too long in the sun, you’ll get darker.”

Other times, it was a glance, a pause, a well-meaning suggestion about which face wash might “brighten” me. I didn’t have to read a fairness cream ad to know where I stood. Society whispered the hierarchy into my ears every single day.

I grew up in a world where skin was never just skin.

It was a silent ranking system.

A measure of beauty.

A forecast for marriage prospects. And as a child, I learned early that my shade—a deep, warm brown that carried the scent of sun and ancestry—was something people noticed before they noticed me.

The first time I heard the word Wheatish, I was barely seven.

An elderly aunt, smiling kindly, introduced me to a visiting relative:

“She’s a lovely girl. Wheatish complexion.”

It wasn’t a compliment, not exactly. It was a polite label—a way of saying I wasn’t fair enough to be prized, but not dark enough to be pitied. Even at seven, I understood the pause between her words. That single word—spoken like a polite compliment—wrapped itself around my childhood like an invisible thread. Relatives said it casually while pinching my cheeks, shopkeepers mentioned it while recommending a shade of powder, and well-meaning aunties used it while discussing my “future marriage prospects.”

Wheatish—neither fair enough to be celebrated, nor dark enough to be ignored. A category created to tell me I was somewhere between approval and apology .

I remember once I felt my skin was “wrong.” I was ten, playing in my friend's courtyard, when a classmate laughed at my brown arms and called them “mud-coloured.” I didn’t respond. I just ran inside, sat on the stairs, and stared at my reflection in the polished floor. That night, I traced the lines on my palms and wondered if anyone could ever see me as I truly was.

Growing up , skin was never just skin.

It was a resume.

A prediction.

A prophecy of beauty, marriage, and worth. Every wedding conversation I overheard carried a line about the bride’s complexion. Every matrimonial ad promised a “fair, beautiful girl” as if love itself had a Pantone chart. Even my school photographs were quiet reminders: the lighter kids always seemed to shine brighter under the same sun.

I tried to fight my reflection in small, desperate ,silent ways. I scrubbed my face with lemon juice because someone said it would “lighten” me. I applied Kasturi Manjhal and RakthaChandhanam with honey so that it would brighten my complexion and make me fair. I flinched every time a fairness cream commercial came on TV, its promise of “confidence in 7 days” gnawing at the little girl who secretly wanted that magic tube to work. I avoided the sun even though I loved how it felt on my skin ,so the sun wouldn’t darken me further. I watched my fairer cousins soak in compliments and wondered if love, like beauty, had a colour code I could never match. School friends giggled about who got tanned after sports. During family weddings, whispers about the bride’s complexion floated above the clinking of bangles and the scent of jasmine. Matrimonial ads read like a checklist: Wanted: fair, slim, beautiful girl from a respectable family. The unspoken translation? Brown girls could be smart, kind, even accomplished—but fair girls were the ones chosen first. The world around me reinforced the message. .

But here’s what I wish someone had told me then: Skin tone is not a ladder to climb. It is a map of heritage, a story written by ancestors, a colour gifted by the earth itself. The world will try to sell you bleach in a bottle, but your skin is not a problem to be solved.

My turning point came in my twenties, during a trip to Kovalam. It was monsoon season. The rain kissed my face and left tiny droplets glistening on my brown skin. I remember catching my reflection in a shop window—damp hair, sun-tanned cheeks, eyes alive with freedom—and for the first time, I thought: This is beautiful. Not in spite of my colour. Because of it. For the first time, I didn’t see something to fix. I saw beauty—raw, alive, untamed.

That moment cracked something open.

Slowly, I began to unlearn the lies I’d carried for years.

I stopped buying “whitening” face washes. I wore sleeveless tops without worrying about tanning. I let the sun leave its warm fingerprints on my skin. Each act felt small, but together they were revolutionary. Since then, I’ve learned to wear my skin like a celebration. I choose sunscreens for protection, not whitening. I photograph myself in the golden light without filters. I smile when someone calls me “dusky,” because what they mean as a box feels to me like poetry.

Today, I know this:

My skin is not a problem to solve.

It is a story.

A testament to ancestors who walked under blazing suns and soft moons. A map of resilience, of melanin gifted by generations who survived and thrived .I no longer let other people’s shades of approval decide my own light.

But the politics of skin tone is far from over. Fairness creams may have rebranded as “glow” products, but the message lingers in marriage ads, casting calls, and casual compliments. Matrimonial ads now say “beautiful” instead of “fair,” but the undertone remains. Families still praise new-born's who are “nice and fair,” as if destiny lies in pigment. It’s quieter now, but it’s far from gone. We still whisper “so fair!” as if it’s the highest praise. We still sell daughters to the idea that lighter is luckier.

I write this not as someone who has conquered every insecurity, but as someone who refuses to stay silent. Our skin tells the story of rivers and sunlight, of melanin that protects and shines. It is not a ticket to love or success. It is the home we are born into. And homes are not meant to be bleached.

Every time we celebrate our shade—whether Dusky, Wheatish, Honey, or Ebony—we chip away at the idea that beauty belongs to the lightest among us.

My brown skin is my rebellion.

It is sunlight trapped in cells.

It is earth and rain and history.

And no cream, no ad, no outdated tradition will ever convince me otherwise.

🌞 Glow isn’t a shade, it’s a truth.

Your skin tells stories of sun, roots, and resilience.

Own every hue. ✨

Love Your Shade , Brown Is Beautiful .