Describing Skin Tones
Aug. 22nd, 2014 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithHere's a mostly tongue-in-cheek post about describing fair skin in some of the ways that dark skin is often described.
I have actually used "marzipan" as a skin tone. Also cream, peach, toast, porcelain, bisque, alabaster, grub (as in insect, not food), and uncooked bread dough. (Some of the descriptions were from a less-than-positive perspective.) Also in the white-people range are the pinkish-fair tones that are not copper, so things like ruddy, flushed, coral, and rosy apply.
Kay in Schrodinger's Heroes is Hispanic, but has fair skin, which I have described as vanilla latte: a dark cream or the palest possible brown.
Then there was the time I spent over an hour hunting around for synonyms and metaphors of "brown" that were based on things NOT associated with the slave trade, preferably things relating to African culture. Kola nut was a favorite. Ebony, which is dark brown to black, is a sacred wood in Africa and thus legit.
My desertfolk often have two or three colortones combined: rose-gold, rose-mocha, toasted-peaches-and-cream. It's very rare to see truly pale skin or very dark skin in the Whispering Sands, but they cover an enormous range in between with subtle and complex variations of ruddy, shadowy, and tawny hues. Very beautiful. Oh, and to them "melon" is specifically the color of ladyparts and they make jokes about it.
I have actually used "marzipan" as a skin tone. Also cream, peach, toast, porcelain, bisque, alabaster, grub (as in insect, not food), and uncooked bread dough. (Some of the descriptions were from a less-than-positive perspective.) Also in the white-people range are the pinkish-fair tones that are not copper, so things like ruddy, flushed, coral, and rosy apply.
Kay in Schrodinger's Heroes is Hispanic, but has fair skin, which I have described as vanilla latte: a dark cream or the palest possible brown.
Then there was the time I spent over an hour hunting around for synonyms and metaphors of "brown" that were based on things NOT associated with the slave trade, preferably things relating to African culture. Kola nut was a favorite. Ebony, which is dark brown to black, is a sacred wood in Africa and thus legit.
My desertfolk often have two or three colortones combined: rose-gold, rose-mocha, toasted-peaches-and-cream. It's very rare to see truly pale skin or very dark skin in the Whispering Sands, but they cover an enormous range in between with subtle and complex variations of ruddy, shadowy, and tawny hues. Very beautiful. Oh, and to them "melon" is specifically the color of ladyparts and they make jokes about it.
Re: NO FAIR!
Date: 2014-08-23 06:27 pm (UTC)It's funny how people think Doc Savage must be a white guy, he's usually filmed that way ... but the original description is "The man of bronze" and the old pulp covers tend to show with the deep, lineless tan that comes from crossing European with Northern African or Indian heritage.
>> And yes, I've eaten peaches that could never be color-matched to a 'white' person. <<
Well, there are yellow peaches and white peaches. The yellows run to Asian or Asian/American crosses. But some of the white peaches are very fair-skin-colored.
Re: NO FAIR!
Date: 2014-08-23 07:16 pm (UTC)As I recall Doc Savage, Captain Nemo and Singh Khan are all forged out of a particular tradition of 'hybrid vigor' such as Thomas Jefferson projected of a 'new race of Americans'.
As I recall the white peaches don't travel well, so mostly I've has various yellow clings.
Re: NO FAIR!
Date: 2014-08-23 07:20 pm (UTC)True, of course.
>> As I recall Doc Savage, Captain Nemo and Singh Khan are all forged out of a particular tradition of 'hybrid vigor' such as Thomas Jefferson projected of a 'new race of Americans'. <<
Well, they're not wrong. I quite liked Captain Nemo in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a devotee of Kali -- and evidently with a crew that was about 1/3 medics. I guess if you plan to get in trouble all the time, you should also plan for the cleanup. Or maybe he was just carrying on the tradition of "You may kill everyone on the enemy vessel save for the navigator and the doctor."
>> As I recall the white peaches don't travel well, so mostly I've has various yellow clings. <<
Very true, white peaches are fragile.
Re: NO FAIR!
Date: 2014-08-23 08:33 pm (UTC)The slide rule is more valuable than the airgun...
Re: NO FAIR!
Date: 2014-08-23 08:36 pm (UTC)