Beauty Vlogger Rita Adams on How “Faking It” Grew Her Confidence with Vitiligo

‘Fake it ‘til you make it.’ That’s the mantra that has empowered beauty vlogger Rita Adams to live her life without letting her vitiligo rule her thoughts. The decision to accept the lack of control over her skin enabled Rita to focus her mental energy on living her life to the fullest—and love the life she has created.

Born in Mexico, Rita now lives in Texas along with her husband and a boisterous gang of rescue cats and dogs. “It’s very chaotic,” she says of living with six dogs and two cats, “but I just love it. I love them.” When she’s not nurturing her fur babies, Rita creates beauty content on her YouTube, Instagram and TikTok channels, sharing makeup tips, cruelty-free makeup finds, and her love of reading—with the occasional appearance of an adorable furball.

When her first vitiligo spots appeared at age 19, Rita quickly realized that her mindset would play a huge role in how the condition affected her life. “I could spend hours and hours just asking myself, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ and ‘Why do I have it?’” Instead, choosing to fake the confidence she didn’t always feel empowered Rita to take back control.

Even as she worked to accept her changing skin, Rita would sometimes wake from nightmares in which her hands had turned completely white from vitiligo. It was what she most dreaded, she said. And then, it happened—and she realized she was okay with it. 

“I was thinking as long as it’s not on my hands, it’s fine,” said Rita, thinking back to her nightmares about her vitiligo. “So then when it did start happening in my hands, I realized the thing I had dreaded most was here—and I couldn’t care less.”

While she still has her share of struggles with vitiligo, she actively chooses to focus on her identity as a whole person, not just a skin condition. “I have vitiligo, but it’s just part of who I am,” Rita says of her attitude toward her vitiligo today. “To me, it’s Rita who happens to have vitiligo, not Rita the girl with vitiligo. I don’t let it define me in that way.” 

Instead, Rita defines her identity on her terms: she is an avid beauty vlogger, animal lover, bookworm, wife and friend—and whatever else she wants to be. As a content creator on her own channels and in partnership with Living Dappled as a founding member of the Dappled Darlings Collective, Rita is spreading the word that you can live with vitiligo and still be you.

Watch our full Instagram live interview with Rita and catch some excerpts of our conversation below.

Watch the Instagram Live Replay

Meet the members of the Dappled Darlings Collective in this six-part Instagram Lives series hosted by Erika Page, Founder and CEO of Living Dappled. Originally from Mexico, Rita Adams was diagnosed with vitiligo at the age of 19. For her, living with vitiligo is about ‘faking it til you make it’ by investing and focusing on other areas of her life that bring her joy. Today Rita creates content for YouTube, Instagram and TikTok and lives in Texas with her husband and rescue dogs and cats. She’s found balance in knowing she is a whole person who doesn’t have to be defined by her skin.

Watch Now: Rita Adams on Being the You That Is More Than Your Skin

Name: Rita Adams
Age: Early 30s
Location: Texas
Years with vitiligo: 10+

Erika Page: Tell everyone a little about how your vitiligo started.

Rita Adams: I think I was 19—as you mentioned, I’m from Mexico, born and grew up in Mexico all my life; I’ve been here for 10 years in the U.S. So my life was “normal,” my skin was “normal” for the first almost 20 years of my life. So it was very impactful, because I didn’t know this life [with vitiligo] until I was a young adult. So it was very isolating, because I had no one to talk to. 

I think for me, the good thing in a way, was I had just changed schools—I was in university. So you’re in college, you’re already a fully developed person; you’re not like in your early teens when kids are very cruel. I could not have imagined living as a young Rita with vitiligo. And then being in a society in Mexico where everything is very…it’s different, I guess, than what you see in the U.S. There’s so much diversity with every type of thing you can imagine, in the U.S., compared to Mexico. So I could not imagine how it would have been to be “the one girl with vitiligo” in my school. 

My vitiligo started showing more after the summer that I had just switched universities. So it was a whole new crew, all of these people that I had never met, that I had never seen in my life. So they met me as someone with vitiligo. So [to them] it was just, “Rita, that’s who she is.” It was just normal. And I think that was so much easier. 

EP: What was it like seeing your close friend group again, and people who knew you—did that feel like a little bit of a shock?

RA: No. Since they’d been my friends all my life, it was just like a normal thing. So for me, I don’t want to hide it—I’ve never hidden my skin. I’ve been on YouTube for the past seven years, I’ve been creating beauty content for a long time, and it’s never been about hiding my skin, it’s always been about “I just like to do makeup!” 

So for me, [accepting my] vitiligo has been by ignoring it. I can’t change this. I stopped going to doctors and dermatologists a long time ago, years ago. So if I can’t change this, I don’t want this to lead my life. I don’t want to be constantly thinking, “My vitiligo this, my vitiligo that” or “I can’t do this” or “I can’t try that” because I have vitiligo. 

And I think because I don’t pay attention to it, and I don’t put importance in it, I’m not scared to show my skin. I’m not scared or self-conscious about “Oh, they’re going to see me with no makeup,” or “They’re going to see that my neck has this” or whatever. People ignore it. It’s been a ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ for me. I have vitiligo, okay, cool. It’s just part of what it is, you know. To me, it’s “Rita who happens to have vitiligo,” not “Rita the girl who has vitiligo.” I don’t let it define me in that way.

EP: What I think is interesting and special about your story is that a lot of people, in talking with them about their journey with vitiligo, it really is a journey. There’s like a point where they didn’t have vitiligo, then they got vitiligo, they really struggled with vitiligo; there was a time where they were hiding or vitiligo was changing their life; and then they came to this point where they kind of came out of that. And what I think is amazing for you is that I don’t know if you ever went through that period [of struggle]. You seemed to be embracing it from the get-go, right?

RA: I think for me it was just, everything is very much in your own mind, so it was like, I could definitely spend hours and hours just asking myself, “Why did this happen to me?” and “Why do I have it?” And of course these are still things that I think about. 

I was okay with it, [saying,] “Okay, I have it, I’m accepting it,” but then sometimes I would wake up having nightmares. I would have dreams that I would look at my hands and they were white, and I would wake up almost crying, because it was like, “That is going to be so noticeable.” Because at the beginning, my vitiligo was barely noticeable, it was around my face (that hasn’t changed at all—my vitiligo on my face has always been the same), but I had like one little spot here [on my neck], it started under my arms—little spots, so it wasn’t too noticeable. And obviously, I’m on the more brown spectrum, so my vitiligo is way more noticeable than on someone with lighter skin. 

And I would cry, thinking “I just don’t want it to get onto my hands.” I was thinking, as long as it’s not on my hands, it’s fine. But then I thought, “You know what? It is what it is. I can’t stop it, there’s not just like a pill I can take and it’s gonna go away.” So then when it did start happening in my hands, I was like, “It’s already here.” The thing that I had dreaded most was to have vitiligo on my hands—and now I do, and I couldn’t care less. 

So it is a process. It has definitely been something that I struggled with in the beginning because it was very isolating for me. The way I grew up we just didn’t talk much about our feelings. So [I had to decide] am I going to let this consume my mind, or am I going to ignore it? So that’s just the way I deal with vitiligo: it’s gonna be there, but it’s not defining my life or my mental health.

EP: I really do love this approach of “fake it ‘til you make it” and the way that that’s really allowed you to live your life the way you want. So take a minute to tell us a little bit about what does life with vitiligo look like for Rita today.

RA: I met my husband about 8 years ago. We live in a small town in Texas, and we have…a lot of babies, fur babies. We have six dogs, two cats, all rescued—just one adopted from an actual center, everyone else has been street rescued or people dump them on us. And we take care of a few: a little colony of cats outside, and two or three dogs that come to our house. 

It’s very hectic—you know, you would think, “Oh you don’t have any children, so it’s going to be all calm and peaceful”—but no. Sometimes when I’m filming for YouTube, I get comments like, “Oh, we love the chaos.” Because I might be filming and they’re over there fighting. So even though we don’t have any human children, the fur children are very chaotic. But I just love it. I love them.

EP: Thank you so much for sharing your story with our community today. Before we go, do you have any words of encouragement for the people listening today? Especially if someone is struggling with vitiligo taking over their identity and stopping them from doing the things that they love? You’re such an inspiration for the way that you’ve approached your life. So what would you say to someone in that position?

RA: I think for me, it’s gonna be that—no matter what point you’re at with your vitiligo, if you just started developing it or it’s been years—what has helped me (because I can only give the advice that has helped me) is just getting it out of your everyday thoughts. I know it’s very hard, looking in the mirror—because to me, I struggle a lot, I would struggle looking at myself and not seeing the image that I was used to—especially, again, as my skin is darker, so I would look at myself and I’d be like, “That’s not what I look like.” 

Even if you’re looking right in the mirror and you’re not looking at the same person that you were before—just accepting the fact that that person is still you, in a different skin. It is, and it’s going to be ever-changing, so to me it has just been ignoring, in a way, and just letting go of the thoughts that might consume you of, “Why do I have vitiligo?” 

Nothing is stopping you from putting on the shorts, wearing the sleeveless [top], doing whatever you want, because I promise you: people could care less. And I think that’s what stops us the most in doing things we want to do with living with such a visual condition, is “What are people gonna say?” That is not something that you can control, but you can control your mind. You can control the way that you put yourself in front of others. 

So for me, it’s just that: fake it ‘til you make it. Fake that confidence, and it will come. It doesn’t matter where your vitiligo is. If you want to cover it to make you feel more confident, if you want to wear no makeup, whatever it is, even if you don’t feel it just yet, pretending that you feel it, you will get there.