What exactly is olive skin?

[Korbis]

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.

I´ve met mediterranids -in Spain- who did get a sunburn after spending the day in the beach or playing football outdoors so I reckon they weren´t exactly olive skinned. But neither pinkish white, it was more like this:






Which is considered yellowish white, right -silly as it sounds-?


Its sad how most inexperienced people can´t tell the difference between a deep tan and a proper olive skin person. Thats why when asked most of them say after spending their holidays in the beaches of Costa del Sol/ Marseille/Mykonos, etc that the majority of people in southern europe are olive skinned.

[Agrippa]

Actually I even saw fully Nordid individuals having a dark bronze-red tan, most of the time people spending their whole time in the sun during summer, especially nudists are among those.

But point is, they might get even darker than an olive skinned Arabid, yet the exact skin tone in detail looks most of the time still quite different.

Even if an olive-brown skinned person (genetically) can be actually lighter than a yellowish-golden-brown (f.e. Nordoid) person which got a deep tan.

Unfortunately some systems even, like that of Fitzpatrick, doesn't make a real difference between lighter brown and olive-brown skinned variants in detail.

[Curtis24]

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:

Agrippa, I feel bad about asking yet another question, but which anthropologist author has the best schema for skintone? Coon classifies "Mediterraneans" as being "brunet white"..

[Himera]

Good topic..
I notice that I have "light olive skin" ,can it be posible ?
I really have some "greeny" coloured facial skin,I m too dark for those "white hide sun skins" but also I have some rednesses, which is not common for darker types ...

[Agrippa]

Agrippa, I feel bad about asking yet another question, but which anthropologist author has the best schema for skintone? Coon classifies "Mediterraneans" as being "brunet white"..

There is only one rather good and objective way to determine skin color and that is with measurements.

One of the easist ways to do so is to use a scale, like that of Luschan:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_von_Luschan



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color

In the context we talk about the distinction between European colors -14 and what is more common in the Near East, from 15-17 and 18-20 on is important.

While 15-17 is still present in native Europeans, everything beyond 20 on is surely exotic and most of the time the result of foreign influences. Even 18-20 is usually exotic.

On this map there was no distinction made between the pigmentation types in detail, so especially between the lighter Europids and lighter Mongolids, which genetic-structural background is not necessarily the same.

I notice that I have "light olive skin" ,can it be posible ?

I think you are between golden-brown and brunette-light olive-brown, something I see more often in mixes of Northern types (Nord- and Osteuropid) with more Southern (like Dinarid and Mediterranid).

[Mordid]

I think I'd fit in this olive skin categorize.

[Agrippa]

I think I'd fit in this olive skin categorize.

It is noteworthy to stress that this scale is for UNTANNED skin parts!

Otherwise a Nordid could end up somewhere in the area of a Near Easterner by darkness alone...

[Comte Arnau]

Ibex... dark white?

Lol. Forget the terminology, you get the idea. Call it deep vanilla.

[Foxy]

Olive skin (or, in Italian, pelle olivastra), like the name says, is a pretty dark skintone with a greenish vibe. Despite what people usually think, it is pretty rare among Italians and present in a relevant amount only in the South. The "darkness" of Italian is not olive, but a sort of beige reflex.
From what I have seen the same goes with Iberians. Maybe Greeks have an higher amoung of olive skinned people.
Usually olive skin comes together with curly black hair but not always. I have streight black hair and pale complexion.

Skitones

Olive skin (pretty common among Southern Italians, common among Sardinians)



Golden skin (very common among Italians)



Light skin (commong among central and northern Italians)



Pale skin (common among Northern Italians, relevant among central Italians)

[safinator]

That's Olive