White legs in the wintertime

Unless you've visited a tropical island (jealous) or a tanning salon (tsk tsk) recently, chances are your legs are looking a little "pasty" by mid-December. I just got back from a trip to Michigan for Tim's brother's wedding, where I decided to wear a new LBD and peep-toe pumps despite the fact that it was 18 degrees and snowing. Usually I wear tights with dresses and skirts when it's freezing out, but when it comes to a semi-formal wedding or holiday party, there are times when I'm faced with the inevitable: baring my white legs in public.

Of all my body parts, I have always been most self conscious of my legs--especially without a tan. I toyed with the idea of buying some Jergens self tanner, but ultimately decided against it. If nothing else, it was a good reminder that even I sometimes fall prey to vanity and the peer pressure to maintain a tan year round. When I see even my friends continue to tan (even the UV-free kind) I can't help but wonder what they think of me and my white legs. After all, unlike some of my other silly worries (e.g., Is everyone staring at the zit on my chin?), people have made comments about my legs. They did it when I was in 8th grade and they've continued to do it since I was diagnosed with skin cancer. I admit that my legs look smoother and slimmer with a tan than without, but I also realize that my health is more important than how thin my thighs look. I just hate that I sometimes still feel like I should be hiding beneath closed-toed shoes, tights, and leggings.

What about you? Do you bare your legs in the winter?

White as a ghost

I've always loved playing dress up, so it's no surprise I adore Halloween. Last weekend, I got to celebrate a bit early by running a super hero-themed 5k with a couple of my friends. I re-purposed last year's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume into something that was more 5k appropriate, while my bestie found a little boy's size XL Batman costume at Walmart about an hour before the race. Believe me when I tell you: running three miles in a Halloween costume as harder than it looks.

Dressed up as a ninja turtle for the 5k last weekend.

Run Like Hell in downtown Portland.

When I dressed up as a ninja turtle for Halloween last year, I wore a teensy green dress--not rain-proof running gear. Now, when I say that being diagnosed with melanoma impacted all aspects of my life, it really has. Even Halloween.

Pre-melanoma, Halloween prep meant hours in a tanning bed. After all, how could I dress up as a sexy cop, nurse, cowboy, schoolgirl, etc. without the requisite tan? Stopping by the tanning salon was just as essential to my Halloween costume as stopping by Party City to pickup a new pair of fishnet tights. The Halloween after my diagnosis, I made a conscientious shift to seek out a costume that would flaunt my pale skin like an accessory. After watching hours of YouTube clips on how to fix my hair just right, I decided to dress up as a sexy, tan-free pin-up girl. Red lipstick and all.

Halloween 2007.

Then last year, I picked the ninja turtle costume because I wanted to try something new. Something slightly less cliche and slightly more badass. I strut out in my teensy little costume, fully aware that almost every inch of my ghostly white legs were showing. Perhaps it's narcissistic of me, but I'm always worrying about what other people are thinking about me. On Halloween I worried less so because, well, everyone was dressed up, too. Consequently, it caught me by surprise when my friend's boyfriend made a comment about my costume/white legs.

"Shouldn't you have gone to a tanning salon a few times before wearing a skirt that short?"

Flaunting my fair skin in 2010.

I was pissed. Really pissed. Not pissed so much that my friend's boyfriend was making fun of me. 30-year-old men act like high school boys all the time. I really could have cared less that he was giving me a hard time about my Halloween costume. What drove me insane was that he chose to mention the one thing he should have known would really piss me off.

So it appears that no matter how old we get, I can't quite escape critique from my peers about choosing to embrace my natural skin color. *SIGH*

Have you ever gone tanning or spent extra hours at the gym so that you'd look better in a Halloween costume?

The other end of the spectrum: How pale is too pale?

Image: Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

Every day, one million Americans crawl into an acrylic clam shell and bathe themselves in UV light. Actress Olivia Wilde joked: "In a thousand years archeologists will dig up tanning beds and think we fried people as punishment."

On the other side of the globe, women in Asia are going to opposite extremes, covering their faces with ghoulish masks to prevent their faces from tanning. According to a recent New York Times article, the rationale in China for protecting your skin is similar to American sentiment pre-1920: that women should have fair skin, otherwise you may get mistaken for a peasant. Not everyone in China wears these face masks--in fact, they're a bit of a novelty--but the cosmetics industry in China caters to women who want to lighten or preserve their fair complexion. This is reminiscent of 19th century Americans painting their faces with lead-based makeup and even resorting to blood letting (yes, you read that correctly), so that they looked more "beautiful."

Whether it's bleaching our skin with harsh chemicals or bronzing ourselves with a bottle of baby oil, women across the world seem to value beauty over their health. And what is it that defines beauty, anyway? Is pale skin intrinsically more beautiful than tan skin? In my opinion, it's not. As evidenced by evolving trends in beauty, there is no right or wrong way to be beautiful--it all depends on what our culture deems desirable at any given point in time. 

Would today's so-called tanorexics probably be trying to lighten their skin had they been born just a few decades earlier? Or if they'd been born in China? Perhaps. Why is it that no matter when or where we're born, so many of us feel the need to drastically alter our natural appearance, just so that we can fit in with societal norms? I sure don't have the answers, but when I saw these photos in the New York Times article, I couldn't help but see the similarities between these two very different but extreme behaviors (excessive tanning and excessive sun avoidance). It all just seems so silly, although I know--especially from previous personal experience--how real the peer pressure we often face to look a certain way can feel.