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Here's a task: picture Donald Trump. Chances are you’re imagining the US president’s trademark features: the MAGA hat, the blonde hair, the permanently tanned skin. Over the years, Trump's skin has been the source of much mockery - most cartoons of Trump show him bright orange, as do Trump fancy dress costumes, while Alec Baldwin opted for a heavy, darker shade of make-up while playing him on Saturday Night Live.

Given his controversial return to office in January, Trump is set to be on our screens more than ever, leading people to ask just why Donald Trump is orange – especially after he wore a florescent orange jacket during a promo video released on 31 October!

Safe to say the colour of Trump's skin has always been a subject of fascination...

Over the years, it’s been suggested that Trump uses both tanning beds and spray tans to assume his hue – the lighter colour around his eyes has, accordingly to some, been chalked down to wearing goggles during those processes.

In her 2018 book Unhinged, former aide Omarosa Manigault claimed that Trump fired a staff member for failing to set up a tanning bed at the White House properly. That same year, former FBI director James Comey also addressed Trump’s skin tone in his own memoir A Higher Loyalty. He described how the politician’s ‘face appeared slightly orange, with bright white half-moons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles’.

Then there's also his former military school classmates, who have previously claimed that Trump would plug in an ultraviolet tanning bulb to ‘go to the beach’ (via The Washington Post), but early photos of Trump tend to show a much paler man than the one we see today.

However, make-up artist Kriss Blevens, who has worked on every President since Jimmy Carter – including Trump – recently theorised that the colour came from self-tanner. ‘Because I have done Trump’s makeup several times, I can tell you that, at times, his face looked bronzer than the rest of him, and that was before makeup,’ she told Fast Company. ‘My guess was he relied on some self-tanners to try to maintain a certain look that he’d come to feel healthy in from living in Florida.’

Ultimately though, the question isn't how Donald Trump achieves his orange hue, the question is why? Does the former president seriously think that that particular shade makes him look better?

Researcher Tania Woloshyn - who specialises in light therapy - has spoken about how Trump's skin colour changed as he became more famous in the early noughties thanks to his reality show The Apprentice. She believes that the decision comes from Trump's insecurities.

In a 2018 paper she wrote, 'Trump believes altering his natural skin colour will improve his appearance and, hence, sense of self. Trump's skin colour is a target of ridicule of a man obsessed with vanity yet marked by signs of failed masculinity.' Not exactly a glowing indictment, but it's pretty relatable honestly!

And last week American photo editor Emily Elsie - in response to a series of question on her Instagram - seemingly supported that thought process when she stated that she believed that the intensity of hue is directly correlated to the politician’s stress levels.

'I feel like something more psychological is happening,' she claimed. 'When Trump took office in 2017, he was significantly less orange... but as his term wore on, more bronzer was applied.

'The more stressed... the more makeup. And then when out of office, the makeup would only reappear for the cameras. But it was mostly toned down. Then something interesting happened. After Trump’s debate with Biden in June 2024, the makeup all but disappears. When Trump was up in the polls, and a victory was all but certain, the bronzer was gone.'

It's worth noting however, that Trump’s team have previously rejected claims that the former reality star gets spray tans or uses sun beds. In 2019, an anonymous White House source, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, insisted to The New York Times that his shade was all down to ‘good genes’.

But let's be honest, the questions and rumours surrounding the hue of Donald Trump's skin aren't going away anytime soon.