Why Do People Have Different Coloured Skins?

In Northern Europe, people are found with whitest skin. They are called Nordics. People living in West-ern Africa have blackish skin. People in Southeast Asia have a yellowish tan to their skin. The majority of men, however are not white, black or yellow but represent hundreds of shades of light, swarthy and brown men.

The reason for the difference of colour in the skin of people is really is a series of chemical processes that take place in the body and the skin. There are certain colour bases called “chromogens” in the tissues of the skin. These are themselves colourless. When certain enzymes of ferments act on these colour bares, a definite coloured skin is emerged.

Taking a particular case of an individual who either does not have these colour bases, or his enzymes do not work properly 04 these bases. Then such a person is an ‘albino’, with no pigmentation at all. This can happen to people anywhere in the world. The Albinos are in Africa; they are whiter than any white man!

In the absence of any colouring substance, the human skin is creamy white. To this is added a tinge of yellow, which is due to the presence of a yellow pigment in the skin. Another colour ingredient found in the skin is black. It is due to the presence of tiny granules of a substance called ‘melanin’. This substance is sepia in colour, but it appears black when in large masses.

Due to blood circulation, another tone is added to the skin. This circulation in the tiny vessels of the skin. The colour of an individual’s skin depends on the proportions in which these four pigments white, yellow, black and red are combined. All the skin colours of the human race can be obtained by different combinations of these colour ingredients, which are present in all of us.

Ability to create melanin is with Sunlight, this is a black pigment. People living in tropics have more of this particular pigment and thus have darker skins. Spending a few days in the Sun, the ultraviolet light of the Sun creates more melanin on the skin and ‘Suntan’ is therefore the result.