Young Woman With Vitiligo Spreads Body Positivity While Painting Her Skin Into Works Of Art
Ashley Soto was once bullied for her varied skin tones, but now she’s using her body as an art canvas. The 21-year-old has vitiligo, a disease that causes a loss of skin color in blotches, according to Mayo Clinic.
A couple of months ago she started to paint her body into vibrant masterpieces that she shares with her over 100,000 Instagram followers.
“The marker chronicles are a way of showing that we are art. I’ve learned with time that there is always a positive way to look at things and the struggles we go through. It’s easy to let things that we have no control over define us," Soto told Yahoo Beauty.
Soto, who was diagnosed with vitiligo at 12 years old, now looks at her skin in a whole new light.
“This project has been a way to show that what others might perceive as your flaws are actually what make you beautiful and set you apart from the rest,” Soto said.
Vitiligo affects people’s skin to different extents and at different rates. Soto’s is on 75 percent of her body, Yahoo reports. Although there’s no definitive cause for the disease, doctors believe it may be related to an immune disorder, family history, or a trigger event, like sunburn or stress, Mayo Clinic states.
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