There are now skin color modifiers for emoticons! This means that a whole generation of people will become familiar with the 1 through 6 numbering system it uses. This is taken from the Fitzpatric scale. On British police procedurals I see they have a notation system, but don’t know what it is. So that’s clearly not universally understood. Some skin tones do have more individual names: Olive skin is F-IV, but there’s more too it than that, and I think this is what you’re getting at. My answer is p0etically. For example, Cindy has olive skin, but it fades in the winter to a green/yellow shade that people would call “waxy.” So, she uses a tanning light just a bit to keep it a beautiful golden color. To describe this in the book, I would use words like “waxy” and “golden”. Characters A and B are both Caucasian, but I might describe how B has real issues with sun and is very diligent about renewing sunblock every two hours, watches for pink patches to warn of the beginning of a burn, etc. while A is less bothered but still needs to use sunblock. They are F-III and F-II respectively. Maybe they’ll both tan to the same overall darkness, but will differ in warm/cool shading. For very pale skin, you can have a warm undertone or a cool undertone. These have names like alabaster, porcelain, ivory, etc. Now you might mention the differences indirectly, by having one character who looks good in blue and the other in olive, but they look bad if they were to swap shirts. The “season” categories are popular for describing the warm/cool undertone, separate from the overall darkness of the skin. Also different descriptions for men and women: A might have rugged bronze tan like a well-used penny, naturally darker on his shoulders and front of the arms from his activities outdoors. B OTOH has a flawless honey glow, carefully maintained. There are some common names among makeup companies, but they all make up their own. Use names that sound like that though, and people will know what you mean. ---- Your reference to Pantone 61-6 C refers to the hue, not the darkness. Google shows me Black, Asian, and Caucasian people all with that measurement. It’s just a typical warm skin tone. I think this is actually hard to determine from a casual look, unless someone is really into makeup and clothing.
Pale, chalky, olive, brown, chocolate, dark chocolate... If you insist on putting so much store in describing their exact tone then you're going to have to use comparisons that, only to you it seems, appear unnatural.
That - although also make sure its appropriate to character.... if your character is a rough ass biker who works as a bouncer in a stripjoint you'd be better saying his skin was the colour of rusted barbed wire, or the same dark gloss as the bottled beer , than you would using delicate make up terms
I said “Also different descriptions for men and women: A might have rugged bronze tan like a well-used penny, naturally darker on his shoulders and front of the arms from his activities outdoors. B OTOH has a flawless honey glow, carefully maintained.” Perhaps men should use a smaller collection of actual color names and then compare with some manly object, especially if otherwise associated with his character. If makeup were marketed to men, they’d probably come up with names like Axlegrease, Mountain Cliff, Pinecone… BTW, I’ve since found this page. Later, this one.
I've never read a story where the exact pigmentation of a character's skin mattered. It reminds me of a point Les Edgerton made about details in a story. Suppose your story involves a car crashing through a field. Is it essential to know what kind of field it is? If you say it's a tobacco field in a place where tobacco isn't grown, then the fact a tobacco field is growing there had better come into play, or it's an error. If the story isn't about a crop growing where it shouldn't, it might be wise to be vague. "A car crashed through a field." Some readers will picture corn, others wheat, others weeds and flowers. It doesn't matter. Yes, it's helpful to describe characters with more specificity for the sake of a mental picture, but if I ask a hundred thousand people to name the first person that comes to mind when I say, "A black guy," there would be a wide array of skin tones represented in their answers. If you're writing a murder mystery and the murderer has a similar but different skin tone than a suspect, then specificity comes into play, but I don't know that it's essential to nail down an exact shade. If I say "dark brown," again, different people will think of different shades. You'd be hard pressed to find a descriptor that creates an exact image without saying, "He looked like Denzel Washington," which may or may not work in a story, and may or may not get you sued by Denzel. Instead of trying to say, "He had skin the color of...", consider how your POV character would describe the person if they were looking for them and had to describe them to someone else. Would it help to say, "He's coffee-colored?" Eh, probably not. We often perceive our world in relation to ourselves. So if your POV character is dark as night (see what I did there?), they might say, "I'm looking for a pale-skinned woman. She's short, with a thick build." A different character would likely describe that woman differently, but it only matters what your POV character thinks. Lastly, I know this doesn't cover every possible scenario. No answer can, especially on a subjective subject like description of characters. Include the details that matter, and don't nitpick at the rest. You'll never have a description that creates an exact image in the readers' minds.
I disagree here. If the field is there at all, yeah, I want to know what kind of field. Vagueness is distracting; specifics less so.
I would say it depends on the story as to what details readers want, but we as readers often fill in details without realizing it. In the Joe Ledger series, there's a character I pictured as black, despite his skin color never being described. I'm pretty sure he was intended to be white, but since it's never specifically stated, my brain filled it in.
I use the same resources @izzybot and @ChickenFreak posted. Bear in mind that some people of colour have asked writers to stop using food to describe dark skin tones: caramel, honey, chocolate, whatever. And it's a personal bugbear of mine when authors describe every non-white character's skin tone, but never white characters. It suggests white is the default and anything else is 'other.'
My current WIP is set in Ancient not-Greece. Trying to learn about Mediterranean skin tones, tanning, and the language people use to describe it.
Riddle me this. Most characters (people) of Mediterranean descent are going to fall in the middle of this chart — olive, tan, and brown depending on their complexion and how much sun they get. How much do most people change in the sun? I personally go from light to "medium" (which really isn't medium if you look at the chart). The actress in my previous post looks like she goes from fair to olive. Do people who are olive in the winter have brown skin in the summer most of the time, lighter or darker? What’s your experience?
Last question. Do you think the description of skin as olive or bronze is abstract or concrete? If I say: she had bronze skin she had olive skin Do you have a clear idea what I mean, or do you pull back and wonder? Can different people see these descriptors differently, but individually draw a mental picture quickly without being confused? I had thought, originally, that olive skin was exactly as described on the above chart, but now I see people with fair skin still use olive to describe their undertones, and I’m just associating the word olive with their tan. That said, describing Mediterranean complexion seems hard, because you are basically focusing on the undertone. Even though white and black people can each have cool and warm undertones, most people don’t describe them. They will just say fair or dark brown. It’s only in this one case where the undertone is mentioned, which makes me question if it should be mentioned at all, as I’m not inclined to mention cool or warm undertones. In that case, Mediterranean skin would be better described as tan, brown, golden bronze, fair, rather than olive.
I talked to some people either from Greece or with olive skin. They all suggested that olive is the color of the tan, or to say olive + how the sun has affected the color, because that’s how they think of themselves.
I thought you meant 'tone,' as in shape or condition! As in, my skin tone makes me look like The Saggy Baggy Elephant. (Which is why I wear feathers.)
