Yours Truly, the girl who couldn’t give a fuck about beauty secrets for flawless skin.

For what feels like years, I have been wanting to write about skin. My skin. Because you know, it’s what I’ve lived with since I was born. Usually, I have so many girls messaging me asking me how I’m so flawless? What’s my beauty secret? How is my skin so clear? What products do I use? How am I so pretty? Well, here’s the thing — there are no products or secrets that can make you beautiful because you are already beautiful! The problem is not within you. The problem is with all the magazines and catalogues and an entire industry filled with people who’s only job is to make you feel flawed, so you can then try to fix your flaws. I am tired of influential women talking about beauty secrets that they promise has fixed their skin even though it’s probably just their luxurious life style with great health routines and cosmetics and well… photoshop. Also — Fixed? Yes, maybe there are products that are good for your skin, there are things that give you nutrition and nourishment and creams that suit your skin type better than others — but I still wouldn’t use the word “fixed”. You do not need to fix anything.

The other day, I put up a photo on Instagram without filtering my skin to make it look the way you’d want it to look. Oh you should’ve seen the absurd amount of comments that rained upon me. “Whats wrong with your skin?” “Ew, so ugly” “Yuck, your legs” — Because you know, how could a girl, that too an actor, possibly not be flawless? But because I am me, I couldn’t give a fuck about it. Although, I couldn’t help but wonder how awful every kid out there must feel about themselves when they hear the same shit about their appearance over and over again. So I started to google some of the most common skin problems — the list is endless and alarming and I wanted to just address some of them. Also thanks to all the idiots that left narrow minded comments on this post of mine, because if it wasn’t for you, this blog post would’ve never happened.

I grew up with a thing called Ichthyosis Vulgaris. Mine is extremely mild. Its heridity, from my Dad’s side. One of the few useless things he left behind for me apart from the other things that I never needed. My brother has it too. But he’s a boy with hair on his legs so it doesn’t bother his lifestyle as much as it bothers mine. Also, we know how little society cares about marks on a mans body, in comparison, they’re suppose to be “rough”. So what is Ichthyosis Vulgaris? It’s actually really JUST dry skin. Every skin has a shedding cycle, where your old skin sheds and new skin grows — my cycle of shedding and new growth overlaps and hence, parts of my body always look like I’m a Fish. I didn’t really know about it till I was 18–19… Until then, I was just the kid with “weird skin” or the “skin disease”. Hey, people would call me a fish, a snake, a reptile — and many other things. You’d be surprised that even till date, in a world full of grown ups, I still get the fish jokes. Was I always this strong, confident girl? Of course not. I must’ve had the hardest of years while growing up. I barely made any friends, I would always cover my legs — in fact, I would wear stockings with everything up until 2009! Stockings with shorts, dresses, skirts — you name it. The thought of someone seeing my skin made me cringe. I knew they’d ask me 20 questions, or look at me like I was abnormal. I knew everybody thought my legs are weird. Trust me, I hated it. I hated my skin, I hated myself, I even hated my mom for years (though this was absolutely no fault of hers, but she happened to be the only parent around so she bears the brunt). I grew up with complexes where I thought if a boy liked me regardless of my “ugly skin”, then he must be amazing, for “accepting” me, and in return I should be okay with his behavioural issues. That was a whole lot of bullshit that I fed myself thanks to the innumerable magazines that tell girls how to be flawlessly beautiful instead of teaching them how to love themselves. There is a major problem with how our world functions, and unfortunately not enough women are speaking up about it.

It was only in 2009, when I was dating a boy who was a childhood friend of mine, that I began to actually accept me for who I am. He was an Architect, who fell in love with my skin – and I fell madly in love with him. For the first time in my life, someone thought my skin was beautiful. He would spend hours with a pen just drawing over the lines on my legs, telling me how fascinating they were and how every part of my body was way more appealing than the boring old clear skin. As you’d imagine, I wanted to spend my whole life with him. The way he genuinely looked at me, changed something within me. I had never seen myself the same way before. When that relationship ended two years later, it broke my heart and shattered my whole existence for a while because to me, I had lost the one man that I thought was my soul mate. I thought, ‘He loved me for my flaws and now he is gone’. Where as in reality, I just didn’t realise that his purpose in my life was simply complete. Months later when I healed my broken heart and was stronger than every before, is when I saw everything with clarity. I saw that he wasn’t the one for me. He entered my life at a certain point to help make me realise that I am absolutely beautiful just the way I am. With the help of this lover, the best set of friends in this world who loved me just the way I am, a wonderful mother and brother that told me I didn’t need to fix a single thing— is how Saloni became the girl she is today. But it wasn’t just the love that changed me — it was all the hate too. All those people that ever insulted me, looked down upon me, called my skin ugly or made me feel like I wasn’t good enough — those are the people that really made me stronger. I just won’t give them the credit for it because hey, that was never their intention!

Did you know, once I started reading more about my skin, I realised LOTS of people have it? To be precise, 1 out of every 250 people have Ichthyosis. Kids, Adults, Everybody! Some of the cases are so extreme that it makes me cry. People have it spread over their whole body and sometimes even their face. I struggled through my childhood with just a mild case of Ichthyosis… and to imagine there are people that are dealing with even more insults because they can’t cover up their whole body with just a pair of socks. To imagine that their only mistake is something they’re born with? 1 out of 250 people, that is a HUGE amount — and yet I had never met anybody outside my family with skin like mine. Why?? I always wondered, why don’t I ever find them? I guess I wasn’t the only one trying to cover my flaws up — there were others all around me, shaking my hand and crossing my paths daily — covering their flaws underneath their clothes so that they wouldn’t be judged and teased, by people like you and me.

This post today, is a dedication to every girl out there who is conscious about her Skin. I know I’ve been very lucky with the kind of people I have had in my life — but it wasn’t just them that changed me. I changed me. I began to love my skin for what it is. Post 2009, I didn’t touch a pair of jeans for years! I didn’t give a fuck about people staring, passing remarks or judging me. I was just so bloody happy to be in love with my body that I thought, fuck them. Maybe it is also ironic, but if you ask me the favourite part of my own body today? I would say my legs. I absolutely love my legs. I think they’re amazingly long, curvy, and beautifully textured!

I know what it feels like though — I really do. You either have too many pimples because your skin is too oily, or you never get a pimple because your skin is too dry but winters feel like hell when your skin begins to crack to an extent that it bleeds. Maybe you sweat too much and you’re always conscious about the hand shakes. You may have Psoriasis, or maybe its Eczema, maybe the PCOD is driving your hormones crazy and your skin outrageously unstable, maybe people make fun of your freckles, maybe you have Vitiligo and you’re always scared of the jokes people will make about the colour of your skin, or the lack of it — it takes Winnie Harlow becoming a supermodel, that people are now seeing Vitiligo as beautiful. Sadly, once again, we’re letting the magazines define for us what is accepted as “beautiful” and what’s not.

It’s a shame because even parents think that their daughters with imperfections will never find a man to love them. I know. I know so many of you girls out there are struggle with your imperfections on a daily basis. You get shit from kids at school, from boys, sometimes from extended family and people that think they know whats better for you. I know how all of that feels. I hate Beauty Salon’s so god damn much, you know why? Because i’ve never managed to enter a single one without a lady telling me “Don’t you apply any moisturiser? Your skin is so dry! You should put some oil.” On most days I feel like slapping the life out of that person and telling them how my skin literally eats oil as though it was starved for years. I could put Ghee on my whole body and even that won’t change the texture. And what makes her think that I wouldn’t have bothered to dip my skin in Oil, Milk, Cream, Malai, Haldi, Coconut water, 101 Moisturisers and other ridiculous remedies suggested by strangers just like hers before I made the decision to just Stop. Stop, and accept myself. So, though on days I want to say a lot many things to these strangers in Salon’s — I politely smile and walk away because I’ve realised it’s not their fault. People that have normal skin are ignorent towards the rest of the kinds of skins that exist in this world. And screw them. I mean really, screw these people. We live in a world where people are judged on the basis of their skin COLOUR — and w’re expecting them to understand skin problems? And why are we expecting any sort of acceptance from the world anyway? There isn’t one person out there that can stop YOU from loving yourself.

Over the last couple of years, I have realised exactly why I ended up here — here in front of you. As an actor, a writer, or just as that girl you like to listen to. I realised why I went through all the things I did as a child, so that one day, I could stand in front of all you girls and tell you that YOU are absolutely beautiful. I have all the imperfections a girl can have, I am not the magazine definition of “beautiful” so trust me when I say this, there is NOTHING wrong with you, your skin, or your colour. You are fucking gorgeous. That surprise pimple that popped up right when you woke up this morning for a job interview — its beautiful. Don’t curse it. The dry patches that you keep moisturising because when you don’t it hurts — its fucking beautiful. The way you sweat more than everybody else does and it always leaves patches on your clothes — its beautiful. The acne, the scars, the scales, the moles, the freckles, the uneven skin, the darker patches, the lighter patches, the wrinkly bits and those stretch marks — all of it, is so beautiful that if today, you decided to believe in yourself, like really believe in yourself — you’d make the models want to run for their lives.

If anybody in this world ever questions you or judges you on the basis of your skin, remind yourself of how much you pity them and their ignorent life. If anyone even so dares to wonder who would love you with all your flaws, look them in the eye — and ask them to politely go fuck themselves. Ask them to take their idea of how tall a woman should be, how much she should weigh and how big her breasts should be and shove it up in a place that’ll put them under section 377. You do not need make up to give you the “natural glow” so it looks like you’re not wearing make up because it’s nude but it’s still fucking make up. You already have that natural glow! You don’t need fake eye lashes, perfect hair, flawless cheeks, or beauty tips from a god damn Magazine that air brushes their models on Photoshop.

You are so much more than just your skin. You are your silly laughter that can light up a whole room. The spark in your eyes will make people fall for you. The way you want to be touched, but you still shy away when he looks at you, makes you beautiful. Your sense of humour, and even that defence mode you get into when you’re walls are as high as the ones Trump can only dream of — is beautiful. Those tears in your eyes, struggling to stay back, are beautiful. Let them fall. Release the pain. It’s okay to cry. One day, you’ll meet somebody who will love your scars — because thats what they are, absolutely mesmerising, loveable little parts of you that define you in different ways. Don’t forget to look at yourself in the mirror every day and tell yourself you’re beautiful. Look at each little imperfection you have, and pamper it. Because if you can’t even fall in love with yourself, then why should anybody else?

So yes, I have a mild case of Ichthyosis Vulgaris and if I can live with it without giving two flying fucks to the people that tell me my legs are ugly — then honey, so can you. If I can become an actor and if I can follow my dreams, then so can you. You can be someone else’s inspiration with how you choose to live your life. You can be the role model that little girl in school needs, so that by the time she grows up, she’ll know what real beauty is. She’ll know that she’s gorgeous… exactly the way she is.

Yours Truly,

The girl who couldn’t give a fuck about beauty secrets for flawless skin.

Photographer: Zain Ali Photography