Where skin color comes from
Your skin's color comes from melanin (MEL-uh-nin). It's a natural coloring, a bit like paint, that your body makes.
Melanin is made by cells called melanocytes (muh-LAN-uh-sites) at the bottom of your top layer of skin. They pass tiny packets of melanin to the skin cells around them.
There are two main kinds. One kind is brown to black. The other is red to yellow. The mix of the two, and how much you make, gives you your own shade.
Blood in your skin adds a touch of pink or red, which is why cheeks can glow after you run.
Same cells, different amounts
Here's a surprising fact: people with very light skin and people with very dark skin have about the same number of color-making cells.
The difference is how much melanin those cells make. Cells that make lots of melanin give darker skin. Cells that make less give lighter skin.
Your genes, the body instructions you were born with, mostly decide how much melanin your cells make. That's why people in a family often have similar shades, and also why brothers and sisters can have different ones.
Ancestors and sunlight
Long, long ago, people's ancestors (the people in their family who lived long before them) lived in different parts of the world.
In very sunny places near the middle of the Earth, darker skin was a big help. More melanin protected skin from strong sunlight.
In places farther north or south, where sunlight is weaker, lighter skin helped. It let skin make enough vitamin D from the gentler sun.
Over many, many generations, people's skin colors came to fit the places their families lived. Today families live all over the world, so you can find every shade everywhere.
Every color works the same way
Light skin, dark skin and every shade in between all do the very same jobs. They all keep germs out, hold water in, sweat, feel and heal.
Skin color tells you nothing about how smart, kind, strong or fun a person is. It's one of the many ways people are wonderfully different, like height, hair and freckles.
The world has more shades of skin than anyone could count. That's something to celebrate!
Tans and sun protection
When sunlight hits your skin, your color-making cells can make extra melanin. Over a few days, your skin can turn a little darker. That's a tan.
A tan is your skin trying to protect itself because the sun's rays have already hurt it a little. It's a bit like opening an umbrella after the rain has started.
Melanin helps, but it isn't a full shield. People of every skin color can get sunburned, so everyone needs sun protection.
When the body makes little melanin
Some people are born with albinism (AL-buh-niz-um). Their bodies make very little melanin, or none, so their skin, hair and eyes are very light.
People with albinism need extra care in the sun, and many wear glasses to help their eyes. They play, learn, make friends and have fun like everyone else.
Some people have patches of lighter skin called vitiligo (vit-ih-LY-go), where the color cells stopped making melanin in those spots. It doesn't hurt, and you can't catch it from someone.