Hulisani Ravele on growing up with freckles

Most people have skin blemishes caused by diets, weather patterns and even a change in mood, which can trigger sudden changes in the skin’s appearance, but, for Hulisani Ravele, her freckles are a skin “problem” that is natural and permanent.

The TV presenter was teased for her freckles when she was in primary school and pleaded with her mother to take her to doctors to have them removed.

But all that changed when she went to high school. “I was told they were unique. Only then did I start accepting them and loving them,” she wrote on Instagram. She further says she did not realise what the experience had taught her until now. “Positivity and negativity are always surrounding you; you’re just turning one knob louder than the other by choice. Love yourself, from the inside out, by choice.”

Ravele’s journey might be specifically about her freckles, but it could teach others to love another part of their body that gives them sleepless nights; sometimes because of what the voices in their surroundings deem as acceptable. We can learn from Ravele and choose to love ourselves, flaws and all, and not tune our ears to the negativity that surrounds us.

Freckles are merely skin cells that are filled with melanin, a natural pigment that prevents the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays from damaging the skin by reflecting or absorbing them.

They are most frequently found in people with light skin, and, while their occurrence may be found in everyone, especially after exposure to sunlight, they are often a genetic inheritance.