Freckles are ‘in’ right now – and people who grew up hating their freckles now have thoughts about them

Grew up with freckles, lifestyle and wellness influencer Vic Styles I’ve heard all the standard insults about the little spots: “Your face looks dirty.” “Can I play connect-the-dots with them?”

The fact that classmates focused on her face got on Styles’ nerves. She had hated her freckles for years and because she couldn’t find a foundation that covered them completely, she had to make do with the spots. Styles is now 38 and loves the constellation of freckles on her face. Instead of covering them up, she looks for ways to accentuate them with her makeup.

“I let them live in their full glory, if you will, and I really like summer because they tend to pop a little bit more,” she told HuffPost. ‘I think they’re probably one of my favorite things about my face. I think they are really unique.”

It doesn’t hurt that freckles are all the rage these days. Freckles have essentially been sun spots for a long time caused by overactive pigment cells – were considered blemishes that needed coverage or even skin whitening.

As early as 1910, Pond’s advertised a vanishing cream banish freckleswhile people started in later years they laser(Full disclosure from this freckled writer: As a preteen, I tried to cover all of my freckles with concealer. An annoying process that probably only made them worse.)

Now people draw on freckles with makeup – or use broccoli as a stamp (inventive!) to achieve the speckled effect. Now that the dorky Pippi Longstocking connotation is long gone, some are even getting a freckled look with microblading – a semi-permanent tattooing process in which fake freckles are carefully pinned across the cheeks (or wherever you prefer). It is said that there are freckles Meghan Markle’s personal favorite feature film.

What does Styles think about them being trendy now?

“Part of me is a little upset, maybe jealous, that this trend has happened now,” she said. “Why couldn’t freckles have been cool when I was 13, when I might not have been made fun of and insecure about it?”

But Styles, who has had freckles for years, is also excited about the trend.

“It’s a fun way for people to reinvent themselves, to play with makeup and change their look in a non-permanent way,” she said. “And I Love the broccoli trend. I think it’s very creative. Who would have thought broccoli could make the perfect freckles?”

She added: “We should all be celebrated and embraced for our differences, whether it’s freckles, moles, alopecia, vitiligo – whatever it may be.”

To grow up, Crystal Hana Kima New York-based fiction writer whose latest work is “The stone house‘, had a few freckles on her nose and cheeks that darkened and spread every summer.

“As an adult, freckles cover every inch of my face, my arms, even my knees,” the author told HuffPost.

Kim, a Korean-American, said she received negative messages about her freckles from both confronted with different cultures as a child, which led to considerable uncertainty.

“At home, my parents and elders were constantly worried about what to do with my ‘dirty’ face,” she said. “At school, the books I read described freckles as ugly, embarrassing and disfiguring.”

Kim remembers that “in fourth grade, after reading ‘Anne of Green Gables’ – a book about a red-haired, freckled girl who hates her skin – I spent an entire lunch break in the bathroom trying to wipe off my freckles.”

Today, she embraces the collection of freckles on her face, even writing about how she came to love them an essay for Harper’s Bazaar earlier this year. Kim said her oldest son has also started getting some freckles on his cheeks, which brings her joy, not worry, because she has taught him that they are beautiful and don’t need to be masked.

“Overall, I find it funny how differently I would have navigated the world if I were an adult now. Not only are freckles popular, but Korean culture is popular,” she said. “I think the way we’ve expanded what’s considered beautiful is a blessing.”

Amil Barnes, the CEO of a creative branding agency in Washington, DC, also loves the freckles on his children’s faces (in his case, twins).

He didn’t feel the same way when his own freckles popped up around high school – an excellent time for schoolyard teasing. He also wore large bifocal glasses, which made the taunting “much worse.”

“Even as an African American, I fall on the light-skinned or ‘pale’ side of skin color,” he said. “So growing up fair-skinned, wearing glasses and having freckles, I was targeted a lot of of jokes.”

Thanks to a popular book by Judy Blume, Barnes was saddled with “Freckle Juice” as his nickname of choice at the private Catholic school he attended in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland.

“We had this thing called ‘joaning’ growing up – basically roasting someone – and I was always the one picked in a joaning session,” he said. “Looking back, it was funny and it helped shape my character!”

These days he’s especially a fan of his freckles – and for good reason.

“I really only like them because the ladies like them,” he joked. “As I get older, more of them are appearing on my face and I get a lot of compliments on them. When people say, ‘Oh, I wish I had freckles,’ my response is, ‘Oh, I’ll sell them to you. I have enough to go.’”