One of our readers recently asked what I thought about the tan vs. pale debate, so I thought I would toss out some of my honest thoughts about skin and the sun.

As the daughter of a German and Swede, I have a naturally fair complexion. Now you should know that I haven't always liked this fact about myself, and when I was a teenager, I went to great lengths to maintain a tan: laying out on the roof of my house, spending the summer by the pool, never wearing sunscreen. When I finally gave up on the real tan (circa 2002), I started religiously using self-tanners on my face and on my body. After a year of suffering through all of the smelly lotions and orange-y legs, I gave up on the tan completely. Partially, the change of heart was out of pure laziness, but mostly, I was sick of fighting the skin that I was born with.

I was pale. I liked myself. I needed to also like my paleness.

Trust me, sometimes it's not easy letting yourself just be pale, especially when everything in the culture tells you that a tan looks better, "healthier". For instance, when my sister got married last summer, my mother spent a good week of her life begging me to hit the Mystic Tanning booth so that I wouldn't look like a ghost in the wedding photographs. Eventually, she backed off when I reminded her that she was the reason that I was pale to begin with, so she had no one to blame but herself if she didn't like how I looked. As you can see from this photograph, sticking by guns worked out for the best -- not having a tan actually looked better with my maid of honor dress.

In the end, what keeps me going with the sunscreen is that I've found my natural skin color best complements my hair and eye color. Ultimately, that makes me like the way I look, just as I am.