Jasroop Singh was just 4 years old when a small white spot appeared next to her eye.
Over the years, it spread all over her skin. In her South Asian community, people couldn’t even say the word vitiligo because they said it brought bad luck. In secondary school, her classmates called her ‘cow skin’. Her family took her to India for endless medical appointments, looking for a cure that never came. At 11, tired of treatments that didn’t work, she decided to stop taking the medication.
Everything changed during lockdown in London. One day, without planning it, she went out into the street without makeup and with her skin uncovered. She felt so free that she uploaded a photo to Instagram expecting criticism. Instead, the Zebedee Talent agency discovered her, and within a week she went from working at Zara to starring in Primark campaigns and Vogue Italia editorials. Today, at 21, Jasroop repeats her favorite mantra: she wants people to stop and look at her, because at last she feels at peace with the skin she wanted to hide years ago.
