Photo of Trump with pale ring around orange face prompts ridicule, hilarity and Panda comparisons

Wind lifts lid on president’s unusual skincare regime

Donald Trump on the the White House South Lawn on 7 February 2020 (EPA)

It may be the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere, but Donald Trump’s radiant salmon-coloured suntan has not dimmed even one lumen.

The president’s curious complexion has long been a subject of intense scrutiny, chiefly among critics and comedians, with Mr Trump previously blaming his heightened facial luminosity on the glare of energy efficient lightbulbs – which he then threatened to ban.

But a new photograph of the president outside on a windy day away from any source of artificial lighting, has delivered important new evidence on the matter, revealing the full extent of his dermal colour scheme – which does not even reach the edge of his face.

Instead, the hot orange smudge around his eyes, nose and mouth appears to come to an abrupt, and conspicuously circular end, before it reaches a much paler tone blocking off his hairline and ears in a sallow halo.

The photograph in question was taken by photographer William Moon, and published on the account @photowhitehouse.

Several similar photographs were put out by wire service photographers for AP, PA and AFP among others.

Mr Trump’s variegated visage was of course noticed by many observers online, and the picture soon went viral.

“My man looks like he fell asleep while eating a lasagna,” tweeted one viewer.

Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, a Green Party politician in the UK, tweeted: “Can’t someone help him?”

“Didn’t Justin Trudeau get in trouble for that?” one person responded to the photograph, a reference to the Canadian PM's history of blackface.

Others compared the president to a “reverse Panda”.

But the apparent make-up mishap also engendered sympathy from those who have suffered the impact of fake tan streaks. It has been reported by Vanity Fair that Mr Trump does all his own make up.

A black and white version of the same image highlights the sharp contrast between Mr Trump’s face and the event horizon of his scalp.

Mr Trump’s bizarre skin tones have previously been explored in detail by critics seeking to question his health.

In her account of working with the US president, Omarosa Manigault Newman wrote that Mr Trump travels with a tanning bed.