title: Normalizing Human Skin Colors for User Interaction
body: <p>A while ago I came across <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1572413/can-you-have-magic-numbers-in-access-2007/1576837#1576837">this answer</a> that introduced me to the obscure (at least for me) <a href="http://i.justrealized.com/2009/05/09/did-you-know-theres-an-iso-for-sex/" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>ISO 5218</strong>: a standard for representing human sexes</a> (or is it <strong>genders</strong>? - thanks @Paul).</p>
  
  <p>For a pet project I'm working on I need my database schema to store the skin color of a person, and I'm wondering if a similar standard exists. All my life I've heard people using terms such as "<strong>White</strong>", "<strong>Caucasian</strong>", "<strong>Black</strong>", "<strong>Blonde</strong>", "<strong>Brunette</strong>", "<strong>Afro</strong>", "<strong>Albino</strong>" and so on, but after some research in Wikipedia I've realized that everybody is wrong, because those words can all have different meanings:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><a href="http://definr.com/white" rel="nofollow noreferrer">White</a>: yeah, it's a color</li>
  <li><a href="http://definr.com/caucasian" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Caucasian</a>: defines the race</li>
  <li><a href="http://definr.com/black" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Black</a>: yet another color</li>
  <li><a href="http://definr.com/blonde" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Blonde</a>: skin or hair color</li>
  <li><a href="http://definr.com/brunette" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Brunette</a>: again, skin or hair color</li>
  <li><a href="http://definr.com/Afro" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Afro</a>: "hairdo"?!</li>
  <li><a href="http://definr.com/albino" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Albino</a>: also represents more than the skin color</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29#20th_century" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia has the following about human races</a>:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Caucasoid</li>
  <li>Congoid</li>
  <li>Capoid</li>
  <li>Mongoloid</li>
  <li>Australoid</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p><strong>Seriously, Mongoloid?!</strong> I don't know about the connotations of the English language but in my native language (Portuguese) that's a synonym for a person who suffers from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Down syndrome disorder</a>...</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_terminology_for_race" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This Wikipedia page</a> also has some interesting additional information:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
    (1752-1840), one of the founders of
    what some call scientific racism
    theories, came up with the five color
    typology for humans: white people (the
    Caucasian or white race), more or less
    black people (the Ethiopian or black
    race), yellow people (the Mongolian or
    yellow race), cinnamon-brown or flame
    colored people (the American or red
    race) and brown people (the Malay or
    brown race).</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>The problem with using races (<em>besides the horrific names chosen and scientific racism</em>), is that they don't necessarily represent the skin color of a person... Take the following <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color" rel="nofollow noreferrer">photo from Wikipedia</a>:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Albino_boy_tanzania.jpg/180px-Albino_boy_tanzania.jpg" alt="Tanzanian albino child sitting with his family."></p>
  
  <p>The most serious attempt I could find to classify skin color is the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Luschan%27s_chromatic_scale" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Von Luschan's chromatic scale</a></strong>:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Unlabeled_Renatto_Luschan_Skin_color_map.png" alt="Human Skin Color Distribution">
  <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Felix_von_Luschan_Skin_Color_chart.svg/640px-Felix_von_Luschan_Skin_Color_chart.svg.png" alt="Von Luschan&#39;s chromatic scale"></p>
  
  <p>Most people however, are not aware of their von Luschan's scale (myself included). I also though of <strong>having the user visually specifying the color of their skin tone</strong> but that could lead to some problems due to the different color profiles used by the operating systems / monitors.</p>
  
  <p>There is also a more general von Luschan's scale used to classify sun tanning risk:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>von Luschan <strong>1-5</strong> (very light).</li>
  <li>von Luschan <strong>6-10</strong> (light).</li>
  <li>von Luschan <strong>11-15</strong> (intermediate).</li>
  <li>von Luschan <strong>16-21</strong> ("Mediterranean").</li>
  <li>von Luschan <strong>22-28</strong> (dark or "brown").</li>
  <li>von Luschan <strong>29-36</strong> (very dark or "black").</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Since this can become a very sensitive topic for some people I'm wondering what would be the best way to store this information in a normalized database. Is there a <strong>correct globally accepted standard to describe skin color</strong> without affecting susceptibilities while using straightforward terms and avoiding complicated and unfamiliar definitions such as von Luschan's scale?</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HBTZc.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HBTZc.jpg" alt="Human Rainbow of Skin Colors"></a>
  </p>
  
  <p>Similar standards exist for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color#Eye_color_chart_.28Martin-Schultz_scale.29" rel="nofollow noreferrer">eye</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_hair_color#Natural_hair_colors" rel="nofollow noreferrer">hair color</a>. <strong>How would you approach the skin tone terminology?</strong></p>