The world of beauty had no choice but to stop and turn its head when a young Senegalese model Khoudia Diop rose to fame on the Internet with her incredibly dark skin tone. Calling herself the “Melanin Goddess”, she impressed many people with a self-accepting and confident attitude towards her skin color and received an overwhelming positive response, especially on Instagram where she posts pictures of her.

The Senegalese, Paris/NYC model has a skin so unapologetically dark as the night and unique that she became a celebration of colored skin and a role model for many women. 

The Senegalese model was featured in The Colored Girl campaign, which celebrates women of color and endeavors to bust the belief that light colored skin is more attractive than dark colored skin. The project has done a photoshoot with women of varying colors in which Khoudia was part of and stands out with her beautiful skin darker than that of the others.

Khoudia refused to bleach her skin, giving herself the name Melanin Goddess. 

In a time when skin bleaching is very prevalent among millions of African women and many women with dark skin around the world, when the pressure to conform to stereotype standards of beauty is becoming too much, Koudia’s confidence and positive attitude towards her luscious charcoal toned skin comes as a fresh breeze.

Khoudia had experienced a lot of bullying while growing up because of her skin color. 

People used to come up with many nicknames hoping to make her feel bad, but she never cared what they thought. Instead, she embraced her melanin-rich color and went on to become one of the most successful models. The pictures she posts on her Instagram profile and the way she is confident in her skin have taken the internet by storm.

Khoudia’s presence in social networks, on Instagram and Facebook, is helping create conversations about embracing dark and different shades of skin.

Khoudia receives overwhelming support from her Facebook and Instagram followers, more than 105 thousand of them, who admire and adore her for her confidence, unique skin tone and remarkable natural beauty. Her handle, @melanin.goddess, on Instagram soon became her nickname. “Darky”, “Daughter of the Night” and “Mother of Stars” are some of the other nicknames that she loves and has embraced.
[source: instagram/melaniin.goddess]