Vitiligo Model Sonya Charles on Accepting Yourself When the World Won’t
Sonya Charles’ first modeling photoshoot almost never happened. Moments before the shoot was to begin, Sonya was hiding in the bathroom in tears, overwhelmed by her own insecurities. Today her modeling portfolio shows a confident woman with vitiligo, 100% comfortable in her own skin and representing internationally recognized brands like Maybelline and Marie Claire. That confidence is real, but it’s also hard-won.
After being diagnosed with vitiligo at age eight, Sonya, who is from Kuala Lumpur, struggled with feelings of isolation during her teen years when her spots began to spread over more of her body. “In high school, there wasn’t anybody who looked like me, and there wasn’t much representation for people with vitiligo, nor did I see anyone here [in Malaysia] with vitiligo,” she says. Coming to terms with her always-changing skin during those high school years of wanting to fit in was “a very hard period of time,” she remembers.
On top of that, Sonya felt the burden of living with vitiligo in a culture where the condition carries a negative stigma. While she’s seen some positive changes in cultural attitudes toward visible body differences, critical questions and comments about her skin made Sonya feel alienated.
So how did Sonya go from crying in the bathroom at a photoshoot to posing confidently for dozens of photographers at media events? Spoiler: it took time and effort. “Building your confidence is not a one-day thing, it’s something you have to do every single day,” Sonya says. Learning to see herself with kindness and love didn’t happen overnight, but when she began to practice it daily, her self-confidence also began to grow.
That self-investment has reaped some major rewards, too. Today, along with her thriving modeling career, Sonya works as a content creator and runs a nonprofit organization in Malaysia for people living with vitiligo. She sees these roles as a chance “to remind people that ‘Okay, we were all made differently for a reason, and we’re all made uniquely for a reason and it’s about time each and every one of us embraces that rather than trying to change it.’ Because what’s the point of looking like everybody else when you can look like yourself and still be special in your own way?”
These days, when a stranger comments on Sonya’s skin, her first emotion isn’t insecurity, it’s frustration. “I’m tired of explaining myself…I’m tired of hearing the same questions over and over and over and over again,” she says.
She’s come to recognize that her story has power and she believes in the possibility of changing the world one uncomfortable interaction at a time: “When we speak up, that’s when we own our identity and who we are and what we stand for. And hopefully, that creates a ripple effect, because when you tell one person, that person tells another person, and then another, and another, and it’s a whole domino effect.”
Instead of waiting for the world to catch up and recognize the infinite faces beauty can wear, Sonya’s changing the narrative by defying stigma in public ways. But that journey started small, with daily learning “to be okay with the person you see in the mirror.” As a vitiligo model, nonprofit leader and in partnership with Living Dappled as a founding member of the Dappled Darlings Collective, Sonya is inspiring people all around the world to believe that self-confidence can start with one kind word to yourself—or with drying your tears, tuning out the world’s noise and stepping out of the bathroom and in front of the camera.
Watch our full Instagram live interview with Sonya 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. From Kuala Lumpur, @sonyadanita was diagnosed with vitiligo at 8 years old and started treating her vitiligo at a young age before choosing to stop. Growing up surrounded by the stigma of vitiligo in an Asian culture, Sonya felt a difference in her confidence after moving to the U.S. and seeing the cultural differences in reactions to her skin. Today, Sonya embraces her vitiligo and is just “waiting for the world to catch up.” She uses her modeling career to support her mission of creating the representation for vitiligo that she didn’t grow up with.
Watch Now: Sonya Charles on Accepting Yourself When the World Won’t
Name: Sonya Charles
Age: Early 30s
Location: Malaysia
Years with vitiligo: 20+
*The following script has been lightly edited.*
Erika Page: Tell everybody a little bit about how you found Living Dappled and what you love about this community.
Sonya Charles: I found you guys on my [Instagram] Explore page, actually. I came across you guys and I loved that there were so many other people with vitiligo that you were featuring on your platform as well.
So what I love most about it is definitely the fact that you’re a super inclusive community. You raise a lot of awareness surrounding vitiligo as well, which I think is very, very necessary in this day and age. So it’s great to be around a lot of like-minded individuals where we can share our thoughts and experiences and a little bit more about how our skin goes through different changes and whatnot.
EP: And you are doing a lot of the same work when it comes to raising awareness and sharing your story, which is one of the reasons that we absolutely wanted to partner with you through the Dappled Darlings Collective—to help raise awareness and bring some insight into that lived day-to-day experience of living with vitiligo, which is what you’re doing. So tell us a little bit about who you are today and what you do, and then we’ll take a step back and talk about your journey with vitiligo.
SC: I currently do modeling and content creation, and run a nonprofit organization here in Malaysia that’s also for people with vitiligo. So it’s really fun, especially modeling, because it’s a chance for me to redefine what beauty is and change the whole narrative surrounding the beauty [industry] and media and our community. And to remind people that “we were all made differently for a reason, and we’re all made uniquely for a reason, and it’s about time each and every one of us embraces that rather than trying to change it.” Because what’s the point of looking like everybody else when you can look like yourself and still be special in your own way?
EP: I think a lot of people struggle with that. And you just have this unapologetic way of loving your skin in the face of a world and a culture that doesn’t love your skin, or hasn’t always loved your skin—so I think that’s just very inspiring. Let’s take it back to the beginning and talk about when you were diagnosed with vitiligo. Tell us what that was like, both the diagnosis and then also growing up with vitiligo.
SC: I was diagnosed with vitiligo when I was eight years old, and it didn’t spread until I was about 13 years old. It didn’t really affect me from the age of eight to 12-ish, because I didn’t understand it as well, and it wasn’t progressing as rapidly back then. But from the time I was 13 til now, it just spread and changed all the time. When I was younger, it was a lot harder because in high school there wasn’t anybody who looked like me, and there wasn’t much representation for people with vitiligo, nor did I see anyone here [in Malaysia] with vitiligo. So it was a struggle to come to terms with my skin condition and how it was always changing, and the fact that I looked different from all my friends and family and everybody else around me. So I’d say that it definitely was a very hard period of time. But what I realized was, as I started growing older, I just started to learn how to be more comfortable with the skin that I’m in and embrace myself better. And then to shift my perspective and my mindset from a stagnant one to a growth mindset—which means understanding that everything happens for a reason and the only way I can control how I’m feeling is if I change the way I look at myself. So I learned to look at myself more kindly. I learned to look at myself with more love. And from there everything just kind of—it started falling into place in its own way.
EP: In the vitiligo community, there’s a lot of conversation about embracing your skin, finding the courage to love yourself, all of that—do you have any specific tips or tangible things that you did that helped you to get to that point of loving the skin that you’re in?
SC: I think for me the first step is acceptance. Acceptance and understanding that, like I said, we’re all made uniquely for a reason. So I wouldn’t say there’s one particular thing I did, because it was more of an everyday thing. For instance, building your confidence is not a one-day thing, it’s something you have to do every single day. You have to look at yourself more kindly, do things that make you happy, dress however makes you feel beautiful or pretty. It’s more of just investing in yourself and not worrying too much about what other people would say, how other people look at you, what other people think. At the end of the day, what matters most is how you look at yourself—how you feel about yourself and what you think of yourself, you know? Mindset plays a huge role. Of course, it’s never easy, but it’s a matter of controlling your thoughts and navigating through them. It’s normal to have a negative mindset; we all sometimes feel insecure and compare ourselves to other people. But it’s about understanding why we feel that way and how we can change that so we never have to feel that way again.
EP: You are someone who has what appears to be unshakable confidence. I know everyone still struggles from time to time, but you have this beautiful way of thinking about yourself and approaching the world with an expectation that they show up and see you in that same light. And that is just an astounding amount of confidence. So for someone who is not at that place today—maybe they’re struggling with their vitiligo and they’re struggling with self-acceptance and that confidence piece—what would your advice be for them?
SC: I think my greatest advice would be to take your time, try to stop comparing yourself to other people, and most importantly, learn to love yourself. I know people talk about self-love all the time, but self-love is in the smallest things as well—the way you decide to do your hair, the type of clothes you wear, basically whatever makes you feel good about yourself. But ultimately, it’s also understanding that everybody goes through different journeys in life. While I might be at this place now, it’s not something that happened overnight—it was something that took a lot of time and effort. So self-investment is the best thing that you can do for yourself. At the end of the day, it’s just you against you. So when you wake up in the morning, and you go to bed at night, be okay with the person that you see in the mirror. And once you learn to be okay with that, you’ll see that good things will come your way. It’s a matter of what you put out into the world. It’s a matter of what you put out into the universe. It’s the law of attraction. Put out positivity and love, and that is what you will receive in abundance.
