When I was a teen I so wanted to look like the Bain de Soliel model! I would smear all my exposed parts with B de S or Hawaiian Tropics only to scorch my whiter than white skin. I have never tanned. I burn then fade to white–those are my only two color variations. I always liked Woody Allen’s line, “I don’t tan, I stroke.” But now I am proud of my alabaster skin (no freckles to break up the monotony, either)–I shall hold my head high and no longer will I refer to it as fish-belly-white!
I’m pretty pale, though the nominally exposed parts of my body (face, arms) are not as blindingly white as the rest of me.
My half-Filipina, half-English friend, however, once told me that I’m the “whitest person” she’d ever met. I think the title belongs to a friend of ours who’s into the goth aesthetic.
During last summer, I started a thread where I mentioned that when I’m out looking for sunblock, people tell me where the fake tanners are. I don’t want a fake tan because everyone knows I can’t tan and it would look rediculous anyway. I spend my time wearing spf 50 baby block and still getting slight sunburns just from driving.
The very lightest foundations I find would sort of be light enough in the summer (when I get a vaguely human flesh tone to my skin ;)), but I live in a hot and humid area with no air conditioning, so foundation is the least of my concerns then.
I serve as the ego-booster of many a college girl who bemoans her lack of tan, winter or summer. A guy who hangs out in the AAC (Academic Achievement Centre, where I and others tutor and people come to study) called me Casper.
When it gets cold out, my skin gets funky looking. These reddy-pinky-purple “spider webs” appear on top of the white skin. I had a teacher in 2nd grade who sent me to the principal’s office when she saw it, convinced I was ill or had a rash or something. The only other people I’ve known who’ve gotten that are also pale; I think it might be that you can see… whatever the spider-webbing IS because there’s so little pigment in my skin.
The only thing that concerns me is something that no one’s been able to figure out (and I can’t afford to go to see a dermatologist). When my skin (except my face, since that’s continually exposed) is exposed to sunlight, I get what look like extremely bright red freckles. Upon closer inspection though, they’re capillaries that rise to the surface. :eek: The larger ones are a tiny ‘bubble’ shape on my skin, and I can push the vessel around with my fingernail! (For the love of GOD, do NOT accidentally puncture one of these, it takes forever for them to stop bleeding!). They don’t go away either! I have them on my forearms from the beginning of the summer, and they haven’t sunken back into my skin.
I am insanely pale. As Woody Allen put it, I don’t tan, I stroke. I spent the whole summer in Spain swathed in 50 SPF, scared to death I was going to incinerate.
I’m pale only because I don’t do things in the sun. The sun and I do not get along very well. He’s a pushy fellow.
I’m pale, but I can tan. I spent the entire summer slathering myself in sunscreen whenever I went outside, though, because I didn’t want to be tan. I plan on having lovely skin when I am 50 because I never got a really dark tan or got majorly sunburnt. All my friends who lie outside in bikinis in the summer and go the tanning parlor in winter will be all wrinkly, while my skin will still be as gorgeous as it is now. And then I can laugh at them.
I’ll be the token tan-man here…
I think pale women are incredibly hot, especially if they have long black hair to increase the contrast. As for me, I am deeply tan because I had a couple outside jobs over the summer. Also I get tan if I only think about going out in the sun.
I have blonde hair, but it’s actually turning brown so I don’t look albino. So, I’m pale but without the striking effect that black or red hair creates.
Hey BioHazard. We reside in the same location.
I get those too! My insurance starts up next month, maybe I’ll ask about it then.
When people talk about how pale I am, I just mention that my sister is even lighter than I.
Hmm how pale am I?
Picture a ghost
I’m the paler one on the left.
Really, Ferret Herder? Yay, I’m not the only one! If you do go and ask, and get a decent answer, let me know, for the love of GOD!
When I was little, I would have people come up to me often and go, “Are you dying? You look so sick, you look so pale.” Strangers off the street even…:rolleyes: My mother would slather me in SPF 50, and my grandmother called me her little Dresden doll. My boyfriend, however, takes the cake for paleness. His friends call him Clear, because apparently he transcends white. I notice that his hands tend to get red easily and he seems to have the broken capillaries some of you are describing. Luckily though, I have a thing for sexy men with a vampire-like pallor. 
I am white as a fish-belly. I can’t tan and I don’t even try.
I can’t buy foundation light enough for my skin at Walmart. I had to go to one of the really expensive booths in the mall department store and get their palest shade. The lady behind the counter gave me a makeover and had to wipe off two other shades because they weren’t pale enough before finally digging out one of the two bottles of “Lead White.” She hadn’t believed anyone could be pale enough to need that shade.
I am my own nightlight.
I frighten small children in the dark.
Wow, I feel positively dark compared to most of the people in this thread!
I’m the type that can lie down on a white sheet and dissapear…
…they don’t make foundation that is light enough, much less concealer… (Why can’t they make foundation that is ‘translucent’ like facial powder?) …people around me must wear dark sunglasses if I go out in sunlight because of the glare… even when I lived in Hawai’i I gave Michael Jackson a run for his money in the paleness department
<< Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. >>
In fifth grade, I joined my school’s swim team. My nickname was “Whitey.”
At a pool party in high school, when it got dark they turned on the underwater light in the pool. I dissapeared.
As a child, I constantly got horrible blisters that covered my entire shoulders from just an hour out in the sun. Today, I’m a little more tough skinned, but anything more than an hour’s worth of direct sunlight, and I’m hurtin’ for days. Gotta love those English/Irish/Scottish genes o’ mine.
Another whitey here. The only part of my body that doesn’t burn are my forearms. I also can’t find foundation that doesn’t look orange on my skin. Even at boutiques. Seriously, racinchikki, what’s the name of your foundation and it’s shade? Where’d you buy it? I used to buy the palest shade of foundation and mix it with Hallowe’en white face paint when I wanted to wear foundation. Now I just don’t bother, but I would like to occasionally wear foundation without the hassle of adding face paint.
I also get the red dots on my body, as well as my face. (Lucky me.)
And zits! That’s the only time I wish I had darker skin.
I’m so pale, I get five o’clock in the morning shadow.
I’m like one of those transparent sea squids that live five miles under the surface of the ocean.
This made me think… I myself am a mix of all these, just add in some German/Prussian and Spanish. The Spanish doesn’t really show up physically for me though.
Are all these other pale people this general genotype? It would make a kind of sense…