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A woman with a skin condition which causes patches to develop on her face has got a tattoo as a response to people's stares.

After deciding to stop hiding her vitiligo, Tifanny Posteraro decided to take direct action to deal with the unwanted attention she received.

Tiffany, 24, had the words 'It's called vitiligo' tattooed across her forearm after ditching the thick foundation she'd been wearing for years and deciding she had nothing to hide.

Tiffany spent 17 years covering up her body and wearing thick make-up to avoid cruel comments about the condition, which causes pale patches to develop on the skin due to a lack of melanin

But a chance encounter with another sufferer changed her outlook and now she wears her white bits with pride.

Tiffany, who lives in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Florida, first noticed small white spots on her knees aged seven.

(Image: PA Real Life)

“I showed my parents but we just thought they must be scars or something,” she said. “Over time I got a few on my wrists and then it spread around my whole kneecaps.

“We had no idea what it was. A dermatologist gave me some ointment but it did nothing.

“Then, when I was 11, I was in a grocery store with my mum and a man pulled me aside and said: ‘You have vitiligo.’

“He had the same thing and recommended putting a brand of dandruff shampoo called Selsun Blue on my skin every night to get rid of it. I didn’t want to go to school smelling strange so I ignored that.

“Now I had a name for it but I still didn’t know much about it. My parents didn’t make a big deal about it. To them I was just Tiffany. It was comforting in a sense but I wish I could have known more about it.

“When people stared and made nasty comments, I had no comeback because I didn’t understand my condition.

(Image: PA Real Life)

“It was only aged 14, when more people were using computers, that I was able to look it up and discover I wasn’t the only person in the world with this condition.”

By that time the white patches had spread, now covering Tiffany’s knees, feet, elbows and wrists.

“It was all over my arms and legs, and then it spread to my face. That was before I even knew how to apply make-up, and I had just started a new school so it was awful.

“People would say, ‘did you tan under a tree?’ I got called ‘cow’, ‘Dalmatian’, ‘ghost face’, ‘burns victim’.

“A few boys in my class told me, ‘I can’t date you because of this’. It was horrible.”

Eventually Tiffany started wearing make-up to even out her skin tone.

“I tried everything possible to cover it up,” she said. “I got really dark spray tans and used industrial-strength foundation, the kind used to cover deep scars.

(Image: PA Real Life)

Seeing America’s Next Top Model 2014 contestant Winnie Harlow, who also has vitiligo, bravely baring her skin on television gave Tiffany a confidence boost.

But it was spotting a fellow sufferer in Ikea in May this year that really inspired her.

“It was the first time I had properly met someone else with the condition,” she said. “I was so excited I went straight over to her and said, ‘You have vitiligo – so do I.’

“She told me about various support groups and Facebook communities I never knew existed. It was so empowering.

“After that I just thought, why should I hide who I am? It’s exhausting."

A few weeks later Tiffany had the words ‘It’s called vitiligo’ tattooed in big letters across her forearm.

“I was sick of the stares,” she said. “I just wanted to say, ‘come on, ask me what it is’. I wanted to share with people what it is because that way they would learn something, rather than stigmatising.

“I decided to get the tattoo for that reason – to answer the questions in their heads and give them something to actually stare at.

“It’s over my forearm and wrist and goes over white patches, so it’s perfect.

“Now people are like, ‘I love your tattoo’. They ask questions about the condition and go away enlightened. They know I didn’t get burnt in a fire. They know there’s a term for what I have.

“It’s very liberating. For me it makes it much easier to handle the stares.”

In the UK around 1 in 100 people develop vitiligo.

Certain factors can increase your chances of developing vitiligo, such as a family history or having an autoimmune problem like an overactive thyroid gland. It cannot be caught from contact with a sufferer.