What exactly is olive skin?

[Korbis]

In my experience depending on who you ask you get a different definition. I need some imparcial, scientific point of view.

It is an slightly dark, yet not brown skin tone?






It is a light bronze colour?




Or its just a tone as naturally pale as these of northern europeans, but without the pinkish shadow and ease to get tan?









Or maybe something else?

[Agrippa]

Olive skinned are rather variants like Iranids, Arabids (so Orientalid) and Nordindids/Indids.

Mediterranids can come close, but are usually lighter and different.

From the pictures provided, this comes closest:

[Korbis]

To be honest I was expecting you to pick the first pics or the latest, since Jessica Alba is of mixed race and an extreme case that I posted on purpose.

So lets get it straight: how can we tell what "dark" pigmentation is a natural colour in a caucasian and which one is a product of racial mixing, since they can be so similar?

[Agrippa]

To be honest I was expecting you to pick the first pics or the latest, since Jessica Alba is of mixed race and an extreme case that I posted on purpose.

So lets get it straight: how can we tell what "dark" pigmentation is a natural colour in a caucasian and which one is a product of racial mixing, since they can be so similar?

You can make (genetic and sometimes physical) tests, otherwise you can't.

Olive skin is a natural medium color common in the darker, yet still "pure" Europids. It is a natural condition in the fluent gradient from lighter to darker pigmentation, changing first from "rosy" (because of the blood vessels) to yellowish (more pigment without deep sun tan) and then quite often to more "greenish" (= olive tone), then deeper "brownish" (darker Indians f.e.) and finally "blackish" (black-brown in fact) to put it in such simple and clear terms.

You can only distinguish it, if the pigmentation and skin pattern is different structurally, like between Europid and Mongolid.

Skin pigmentation follows intermediate inheritance, unlike eye or hair color. So a mixed person (of whatever background) will usually fall in between the parental variants in the F1 generation. Mendelian split ups can (must not) follow, in the later filial generations.

Also a slight olive tone can be easily observed in many individuals, but real olive skin is, as I said, more common among darker Europids and mixed people.

People like the rather Iranid-Nordindid Kashmiri have what I consider a quite typical olive skin tone.

They are still clearly Europid, "white" in a sense, but have this darker, deeper, greenish tone more often.

The woman on the right might serve as a perfect example:
http://img266.imageshack.us/i/r3223968685bm1.jpg/

Similar with a deeper (sun) tan:

[Mordid]

I've notice that dark hair European have cold white skin than light hair European people.

[askra]

i think it was a mistake done by anthropologists in the past unable to distinguish tanned people with people with their normal skin tone, because in the ancient times main part of population of mediterranean area worked open air, was employed in agriculture, fishing, etc, so they got tan
infact this term was referred to skin tone of people who lives around mediterranean sea (where grows olive trees )

[Agrippa]

I have a very good description of the basic racial types from Christian Vogel and in this short summary of the basic traits, "olive skinned" being not mentioned for Mediterranids ("medium light, brunette to brown").

But he mentioned olive-brown for Orientalids (= Arabid) by describing them as "olive brown to dark"), this too makes clear that olive brown is not the darkest Europid shade, same for Iranids (which v. Eickstedt put together with Arabid as a subtype into the Orientalid subrace) and Armenids.

So olive-brown is basically the most common skin tone for what we might describe as Near Eastern Europids in the wider sense (including the lighter Indids too).

Jessica Alba looks almost like an "olive skinned caricature" on that particular image, because the lighting makes her appear really very greenish, much more so than she really is in reality.

Still this picture, even if it is not that typical for Alba herself, might serve as a perfect example for this medium skin tone, already darker for Europids, with the greenish touch.

[Comte Arnau]

I quite agree. I don't know why olive has been so associated to Mediterraneans, when it's typical among Afro-Meds but rare among Euro-Meds. Specially if we're talking about natural skintone.

Olive skin, IMO, looks more like within the range shown by Leila Bekhti, for instance:





So a sort of transitional between dark white and light brown that can be seen usually in non-European Caucasians. Very typical in North Africa, although dark white and light brown are also present there.

[Agrippa]

Yes, she is a very good example. Typically olive skinned people almost never get a sunburn, unless being really overexposed to a high degree one could add.

[Aramis]

Ibex... dark white?