I Was Taught to Hate My Freckles. I Decided to Love Them Instead.

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When I was a child, visiting family in Korea was a cause for unbridled excitement. That all changed one summer when my grandmother took me and my cousin Sang-yoon to her local salon to get our hair permed. I was eager to match my cousin, whom I adored, mostly for the fact that she was older than me. At the salon, a slight woman bowed to my grandmother and surveyed us. She immediately gasped. “What happened to her face?” I turned to my cousin, curious, only to find that everyone was staring at me. “What’s wrong?” Alarm lifted my voice high.

“She’s American,” my grandmother said. “They don’t mind freckles over there.”

The hairdresser shook her head. “We have lightening creams. We can make her look like a true Korean.”

My cheeks turned hot in reaction to this stranger’s disapproving gaze. As my grandmother waved off the woman’s protests, I looked at my cousin, a “true” Korean who had never left the country. Her skin was spotless, unblemished. I studied the others in the room—strangers getting their hair clipped, streaked with white paste, pressed in foil, heated by helmets. All were clear-complexioned, unfreckled.

That afternoon, as my hair was coiled and clipped, I scorched with shame. All year long, I had been looking forward to this trip. I was tired of the taunting at school about my lunches, my eyes, my roasted-barley tea. In Korea, everyone would understand me intuitively, I thought. I had been excited to hear only my Korean name—Hana—and to slip on this other half of me.

After that day, I examined everyone’s faces intently. My mother and aunts wore thick foundation that smoothed over any blemish, even in the humid summer heat. My grandmother lamented her brown spots. Sang-yoon and her friends made sure to stay out of the sun. The currency of beauty infiltrated daily talk: “Look at that movie star,” my aunt would say, awed, and I would turn to see a spotless face. The message was clear: To have freckles was to be imperfect. To be imperfect was to be ugly. To be ugly was the worst thing that could happen to a girl, a woman.

This aversion to freckles wasn’t limited to Korea. When I returned to the United States, my favorite novel, Anne of Green Gables, took on a heavier weight. Red-haired, gangly-limbed Anne proudly claims she can dream her freckles away. Early on, she ponders, “Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be divinely beautiful?” As an insecure preteen, I fixated on what was left unsaid. A few summers later, I discovered beauty stories in teen magazines. The instructions always started with full-coverage foundation. Blend until you have a smooth canvas. All over the country, girls were told to paint on masks, so hideous were their natural faces.

As the years passed, I watched with alarm as my freckles spread. They refused to remain relegated to my nose and cheeks, slowly encroaching upon my eyelids and then my chin. In some places, the freckles amassed, fusing into a blob. Throughout the years, I would hear admonishments that my freckles were a flaw: “There are lightening creams, you know.” “Have you been wearing sunscreen?” “If only you could get them removed.”

By the time I was in college, my insecurity had morphed into a resentment of those who held me to this standard of beauty. I became defiant. When my mother casually claimed my freckles were ugly, I shook her off. So what if I didn’t look like a “true” Korean? So be it. I basked in the sun, calling on my speckles to create a constellation across my face.

One summer after college, at an outdoor food market in Brooklyn, a vendor pulled down his sunglasses as he handed me a hot dog covered in brisket. “Are your freckles real?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, laughing. “How could they not be?” “There are so many. I thought maybe you drew them on. Don’t get me wrong,” he said, sliding into a compliment. “They make you stand out, not like the other Asian girls.” Was he negging me?
I was tempted to snark back. Yet in the back of my mind, a small voice wondered, why would anyone want to draw on freckles when they were considered ugly?

The funny thing is, that vendor was prescient. With the rise of social media, the tide began to turn and the boundaries of what is considered beautiful has started to broaden. Freckle filters appeared on Instagram and Snapchat. Famous people posted “no makeup” photos, their cheeks dappled. The past few years have seen freckles become a coveted attribute, drawn onto the faces of runway models, influencers, and A-listers. New products, like PHreckles by Pseudo Labs, Freckle Pen by Lime Crime, and Freck OG by Freck Beauty, appeared on shelves at Sephora and Ulta. Now, you can even get semipermanent freckle tattoos.

I observed this proliferation of pro-freckle beauty products with bemusement. To expand our definition of beauty is a net positive. But a twinge inside me makes me hesitate: There’s a fine line between self-love and being manipulated by a market eager to churn out new products for our consumption. Is it really radical acceptance if you have to add on freckles to create the perfect “no-makeup makeup” look?

A year ago, as we were brushing our teeth in the bathroom, my then-two-year-old son noticed my freckles for the first time. “Why face dirty?” he asked, innocent and curious. How interesting, his word choice, the assumption of a flaw. He tried to wipe my cheek. “They’re freckles, and they don’t rub off. I think they’re beautiful,” I quickly added. He stopped, his finger on my chin. “Boo-tiful,” he agreed with a smile. How easy to create a new narrative.

I forgot about that moment entirely until last week, when he beckoned me to the mirror. “Umma! I look like you.” He pointed to himself with a grin. I bent down to see on his sweet, perfect cheek a brown freckle, announcing itself, proudly, hello.

Products we love to enhance (or fake) freckles:

Freck The Original Freckle Freck Noir

This fake freckle pen comes in a darker ink so it can be used to create convincing spots on medium to deep skin tones.

Jason The Freckled Boy

This freckle liner from designer Jason Wu contains rose water, so it's also gentle on skin.

Freckle Pen

Tarte's Freckle pen has a unique swirled applicator that makes applying and blending the freckles so easy, plus it's available in three shades.

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