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Beautiful Young Woman Shows Off Her Wild Birthmark And Owns It Like A Champ (8 images)
A 20-year-old woman from Loveland, Colorado, is harnessing the power of social media, and creating awareness for her rare condition.
Gloria Aste has amassed a following on TikTok by creating awareness for giant congenital melanocytic nevus — a birthmark that people often confuse for a blackout tattoo.
"I wanted to be open about my birthmark on social media because what I have is pretty rare and I grew up without seeing anyone that looked like me on anything," she tells PEOPLE exclusively.
"I want to make people aware of it and I’d love to see more people who have it embrace it," she says.
"My goal with social media is to just make differences more mainstream because they can be beautiful."
According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), congenital melanocytic nevus "are benign, tumor-like malformations resulting from faulty development of pigment cell (melanocyte) precursors in the embryo." Most CMN's — like the one Aste has — are present at birth and grow with the individual as they "aren’t on your skin, but are your skin," she elaborates.
