Strawberry Legs: How I Fell In Love With My Skin

Written by Winnie Phebus

Photographed by Olivia Robbins

I don’t know when it was I first noticed my skin was different.

I imagine it was at the same time when I realized I was not  like the other girls in my kindergarten class - their straight hair was brown and their eyes were brown and their skin was not brown like mine, and their skin was smooth.

The skin on my legs is not smooth. Neither are the smaller patches on the back of my arms - but my legs are their own masterpiece of marks and bumps, differing based on the level of agitation.

I have a skin condition.

More specifically,  a skin condition called Keratosis Pilaris, which doesn’t sound entirely good or bad, it just sounds like a condition. It is also referred to as “strawberry legs”, a term I quite like. It can also be referred to as “very dry skin”, which is the easiest way to explain it in my case.

From my basic understanding, Keratosis Pilaris is just my follicles acting rudely to the rest of my body, causing almost scab-like bumps and marks to appear on the skin. It is not a super uncommon skin condition. If anything, there are a lot of cases, and doctors consider it to be a type of normal skin. It is usually found on arms and hands, and it is also usually very easily treated, but I have a less common case where mine is particularly severe, especially on my legs.

I can remember a doctor’s visit. I was still in elementary school, but I remember the reflection of the light off of the tube of prescribed lotion as the doctor presented it to me. I looked at that bottle of lotion like it was the solution to all my answers -- as if it would fix one of my biggest flaws and make me beautiful. 

Growing up in a community that lacked representation, I had to come to terms with the fact that the skin on my legs still differed me from the women who looked like me. It didn’t take long for me to understand the difference between what was beautiful skin (light, smooth, soft, unmarked) and the skin I had (dark, bumpy, dry, blemished). I understood what was beautiful, but not beauty as a concept - in my limited understanding, I took beauty to be an absolute. If I was not beautiful, I was, and would always be, ugly.

I remember wearing dresses and feeling like my legs were something to be hidden, a flaw to be concealed. I used to look at the other girls in my classes with unabashed envy. 

How come they got to have unblemished legs? 

What had I done wrong to deserve my own ugly legs? 

I felt like I was being punished, and while I did not know for what, I was completely remorseful. I would moisturize obsessively, hoping for results that would not come. I was ashamed, not only of my legs but of the state of them. I took personal responsibility for the act of my genetics.

Come every Saturday, when I had to put on another dress and look at my legs, I felt shame for being less than good enough. I was not good enough at treating this simple issue. I was not good enough to have clear, smooth skin. If I was good enough, maybe I would not have been cursed with my skin.

I got very little answers to the reason why my skin was the way it was. All my mother would tell me is that it was dry skin, and if I wanted it to be better I would need to be dutiful and responsible with my moisturization. 

So, I thought that if I had only been good - I would have had good skin. 

If I had only been better, I would have not been ugly.

As one can imagine, this mentality took a toll on me.

I can say with confidence that I did not wear a single pair of shorts willingly during my entire elementary school experience, including roughly the start of 6th grade. I didn’t want to have to think about my legs and the state of them unless it was absolutely necessary.

At some point though - I had an epiphany. 

I wish I had a catalyst, an exact moment to share when it clicked in my head that it didn’t matter what my legs looked like, and that I could be beautiful despite my condition.

Somehow, I realized that it was okay to not be “beautiful”, or at least the unachievable standard of beauty very few humans can reach.

While I can’t really point to an exact moment in time, I can point to a movement.

Not only does this current generation have a lot of opinions on everything under the sun, but we also have more ways of expressing our individual opinions than ever before. One beautiful trend that arose from our many ways of expressing how we feel has been the body positivity movement - and while I usually see it applied to body shapes and sizes, it applies for people like me as well. 

One mantra that particularly stood out to me was the phrase, “every body is a bikini body.”

Even my body, one with speckled legs and arms, is a “bikini body.”

For someone like me, who was constantly ashamed about half of my body, it was hard to wrap my head around the idea that my skin did not make me any less beautiful and having different textured skin was not a punishment. I spent years of my life taking it as such — years wasted wishing to be “normal”, when I already was. Seeing models like Winnie Harlow (who I had quite a few things in common with, in that abstract way all of us try to connect to distant celebrities) and Shaun Ross find success despite their skin conditions indirectly gave me courage too. Even though I didn’t have the same condition, seeing these models get published and work in high profile mediums helped me realize the way beauty really works.

When it comes to beauty, there is no normal. There is no template. 

There is a general consensus.

Beauty is subjective, and even at the risk of sounding faux-motivational, it should be noted that everyone is truly beautiful in their own way. 

So I am beautiful, even with my skin.

By the time I came to terms with my differences, it was only logical that I would also embrace them. I wear shorts when it’s warm, and I wear my skirts and dresses with my legs proudly bared. When people ask, I have an answer, and I don’t fear the conversation that will follow.

I am no longer ashamed.

I no longer wish for unblemished legs. I have had these little bumps and raises upon my legs for my entire life, just like my mother and sister before me, and I assume I will have them when I die. My mother still has a galaxy of marks on her legs, and I doubt I will be any luckier.

The marks do not define me. 

My journey of learning to love my skin does. My experience with my skin condition is a part of who I am.

Keratosis Pilaris does not make me ugly, it just changes the way I play the game. I’m not one to play the pain and suffering olympics, but as far as conditions go, mine has been relatively harmless. 

I don’t think I will ever have completely smooth skin. The thing is — I’m more than okay with that. My ‘strawberry legs’ have grown on me, and I don’t think I would be myself without them anyways.