Sonshinetans

Hey Don, We are using your skin type form.We are being asked questions we don't have answers for on line 6. The genetic heritage question. Most of our customers including myself, don't know the difference between cletic, light skinned european, dark skinned european, mediteranean.Can you define these for us.Thanks------------------Tommy Lowery

Don Smith

Tommy:The usual question we get on #6 is how to account for mixed heritage situations. We advise choosing both, adding the scores and dividing by 2.Here is some information that may help.(0 points) Caucasian, Celtic (English / Irish) ancestry. These are the red haired individuals with a lot of freckles and are often skin type 1's. You must keep in mind that over 30% of the Irish population are skin type 1's while only 2% of the USA population are.(2 points) Caucasian, Light-Skinned European ancestry. These are fair-skinned individuals, many of whom are skin type 2's (2A = 2%, 2B = 3% & 2C = 5%). The key word here is "European" ancestry.(4 points) Caucasian, Dark-Skinned European ancestry. These individuals are usually skin type 3's (3A = 17% & 3B = 35%). Once again, the key word is "European" ancestry.(8 points) Caucasian, (very dark natural skin color) of Mediteranean (usually Italian or Greek) ancestry make up the skin type 4's. (= 20%).Note: The above groups make up what is referred to as the "white" ethnic groups.(12 points) This is the skin type 5 group and it is made up of individuals of Middle Eastern, Indian, Asian and Hispanic ancestry. (= 7% of population) These are the "brown" skinned ethnic groups.(16 points) These individuals are skin type 6's (= 9%) and they have African, African-American and Australian Aborigine ancestry. These are the "black" skinned ethnic groups.As you probably already know, Tommy, our natural skin color is determined by the ratio of eumelanin (dark (brown)melanin) and pheomelanin (light (red) melanin), not the total amount of melanin as most people think. Individuals with darker natural skin color have more eumelanin and light skinned individuals have more pheomelanin.Hope this helps.DonPS: We have found that many people forget to add the 4 points for questions 1A & 1B.

Neon Beach

Interesting.