My Vitiligo Stopped Me Wearing Bikinis - Until Now | SHAKE MY BEAUTY

A BRAVE woman has learnt to love her differences by creating artwork with her skin
condition - after years of bullying. Ash Soto, 24, from Florida, stopped going swimming
after a group of children asked if she had “showered in bleach” at a pool party. She has
vitiligo, a condition where skin loses pigmentation, going white in patches and growing
over time. Ash started noticing her skin changing at the age of 12, when a small white
spot appeared on her neck. She told Barcroft TV: “The spots on my elbows and my arms
started getting bigger, I felt very helpless.” She found going to school difficult as other
children would comment on her skin, often with cruel remarks. Ash said that she lost her
sense of identity, “I was a shell of the person that I used to be”. But one day she plucked
up the courage to show her vitiligo on Instagram, which she sees as her “turning point”.
Ash explained that, “other people started writing to me to say that they also had this skin
condition, we started relating stories and I'm like, ‘my God, I'm not alone’”. After this
breakthrough Ash started tracing the lines of her vitiligo and creating artwork out of the
skin she used to hate. Her design influences have included Van Gogh’s The Starry Night,
Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z.