Brinta Ponnuthurai, known online as Brynta Ponn, has racked up more than 100,000 followers on Instagram thanks to her message of body confidence, but that self-esteem wasn’t always present. Growing up as a South Asian girl in Toronto, Canada, she faced judgment for her skin, which led to her experiencing “deep hatred and resentment” towards her appearance. 

Through a process of unlearning the toxic messages we’re told about our skin, practising gentleness and refusing to hide away, Brynta worked her way from self-hatred to absolute self-love. We chatted with the influencer about her journey to skin freedom. 

Hey, Brynta! Growing up, how was your relationship with your skin?

My skin story started when I was a young girl going through puberty and spending all day outside in the sun. As a South Asian girl, I was taught to fear the sun and any signs of darkness or scarring, so while I loved playing outside with friends, I often found myself being scolded for it later on and questioning my own worth and beauty once I realised how dark my skin had become. 

Once I started to develop acne, my hatred of my skin was only heightened and I spent a lot of time trying to hide it. I’d cut and part my hair in certain ways that hid my face and often wore long-sleeved clothing, a habit that I’d bring with me into my 20s once I started to gain weight. When I first started to notice my stretch marks, I didn’t realise it was completely normal as a growing girl. I just knew that they were seen as ugly by society and that there were creams I could use to get rid of them. I think I purchased my first stretch mark cream at 15 years old. To me, it was just another aspect of my body to hide and, unfortunately, my reaction felt normal.  

Where did these insecurities come from? Did you experience nasty comments on your skin?

I’ve faced judgment for my skin for my whole life, starting from the time I was a child and was criticised by members of my family and community for my dark skin. In my culture fair is seen as beautiful and if you were not, then you were a problem that needed to be fixed. I had horrible acne as a teenager, so the texture of my skin was often made fun of even though it’s quite a normal thing for a teenager to go through. Beauty standards from both Western and South Asian cultures guided my hatred of my skin and my feelings of deep resentment towards it. I tried lightening creams and soaps to try to become fairer, and every acne product on the market to try to have a ‘perfect’ complexion. 

What was the turning point? How did you start to learn to love your skin?

Towards the end of my time at university, I realised I was so busy that I didn’t have time to wear make-up every day or worry about what I was wearing. I’d go out into the world make-up-free, in clothing that didn’t hide my dark skin or my stretch marks and well… I didn’t die.

I felt a bit more comfortable in my skin but to ensure that it stuck I made sure to do the work. I devoted more time to mirror work and spending time with the reality of my skin and my body and it became a lot easier to just accept myself as I am. I made sure to be gentle with myself and focused on unlearning all these outdated ideals of what I was taught beautiful skin was. Texture is normal, stretch marks tell our stories and dark is beautiful too. 

It paid off, and for the first time in my life, I was actually able to embrace the sun and my skin in a bathing suit this year when I went on my honeymoon.  

That’s so great. And now you make a point of sharing your skin online, including stretch marks and texture – why is that so important to you?

We spend so much of our time online and it can absolutely make or break our mental health and our relationships with ourselves. The internet can be a really toxic, fake place and I wanted to contribute not only something positive but something real to it. I want to give people a chance to see someone who looks like me: with dark skin, texture and stretch marks and know that it is possible to embrace those things and see them as beautiful and not something that needs to be hidden or changed. 

If I can help someone unlearn the beauty standards that have been drilled into us for centuries and give them even a moment of peace with their skin while scrolling through such a volatile place like the internet, then I’ve done my job. 

I didn’t grow up seeing a single person who had my skin tone or skin type represented anywhere, not even in cultural movies, since South Asian culture is riddled with colourism. Representing a new generation of people who believe that we all deserve to take up space and be seen as we are was really important to me. I love that something as simple as showing up online as myself has the power to help someone. 

Sadly, not everyone is so accepting. How do you deal with cruel comments online?

I definitely still receive nasty comments online about my skin and body, which is why I love the block button. I always tell people to curate their space online. This applies to not just who you follow but comments and DMs if you’re someone like me who has an open page. It becomes a lot easier to ignore when you can’t see it. 

It makes no sense to me to try to respond and reason with people who are committed to misunderstanding and bullying you. I also constantly remind myself that if these people are commenting on things like this on the internet to complete strangers, then imagine what they say to themselves. Those comments have nothing to do with me and are more about how those people see the world, and that is just not my problem. 

You’re so right. So, how do you feel about your skin now?

I love my skin now. I used to want it to look like everyone else’s, but now I have such a huge appreciation for how different it is. It tells my story, which is all that matters. I no longer feel the need to try and change it in any way either, a belief that was born out of trying to appease other people anyway. At the end of the day trying to change it for other people doesn’t make any sense because they’re not the ones who have to live with it, I do. As long as I feel good in it, that’s all that matters. 

And how do you care for your skin?

I love a good skincare routine. I take time out of every day to really spend some time with it from top to bottom. The physical aspect of taking care of and treating my skin is fun and therapeutic to me and very interesting since I have such a penchant for skincare products. The piece that really matters to me now though is the unlearning. Unlearning all my thoughts around perfection and what I thought was beautiful skin was crucial to me in terms of caring for my skin in a healthy and realistic way. I no longer use products to try to drastically alter my appearance but, instead, to care for my skin and give it what it needs. 

That’s a great shift. If anyone reading this is still struggling to accept their skin, what would you like them to know?

I think I’d tell them to throw out any ideas they were taught of ‘normal’ or ‘perfect’ when it comes to dealing with their skin. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder and those things will look different to everyone. 

It’s great to have a skincare routine but leaning on products to completely erase our lines, texture or stretchmarks is kind of like taking away a part of who we are. Our skin tells our story and whether the world accepts it as it is or not, it is ours forever and we deserve to cherish and honour it rather than hide it. I spent the better part of my life trying to conceal my skin, waiting and hoping it would somehow change or become more acceptable.

Although I thought I was doing myself a favour, I was actually wasting precious time that could’ve been spent living my life and not worrying about what I looked like. Rather than waiting for the world’s approval, you can give yourself permission to show up just as you are. 

This article is part of Skin Freedom, a Stylist Love Women series that aims to champion the reality of women’s skin in all its glory.

Images: courtesy of Brinta Ponnuthurai