People with the whitest skin colors can be found in the north part of European continent. Those people are called the Nordic. People with the blackest skin colors can be found in the west part of Africa. People of South East Asia have yellowish brown skin color. However, most of human being are not white, black, or yellow. They represent hundreds of shadow colors. Starting from those who have bright skin colors to those who have dark brown or blackish skin colors.

What causes all the differences in human skin colors? The explanation is on the series of chemical processes, which take places in human body and their skin. In the skin layer there is a basic color substance which is called chromogen. The substance basically is colorless. However, if a certain ferment or enzym affects the basic color substance, a certain skin color will be formed.

However, if a men doesn't have the basic color substance or his/her enzym doesn't work properly to the substance, he/she will become an albino. It is because he/she doesn't have any pigment. This can happen to anyone on the earth surface. In Africa, as an example, there is an albino who is whiter than a white-skinned European man.

Human skin itself, without the existence of he basic color substance, is ivory white. But then, there is an added color, yellow, in the skin. This color is caused by the existence of the yellow pigment in the skin. Our variety of skin colors also exists in black color skin. It is due to the existence of the subtle granules from the substance called melanin. Melanin has a similiar color with a squid. Yet, because of the great pile of the substance, to our vision our skin looks black.

Another color shadow can be added to the skin by the red color of the blood which circulates all around the body under the network of skin layer.

So, human skin colors depends on the amount of the four basic substances, i.e. white, yellow, black and red. Those colors group and form a certain color impression. All human skin colors from different nations can be formed from a combination of different basic color which all men have.

Sun rays have an ability to create melanin -the black pigment in our skin. That is why people who live in tropical areas have more pigment of this kind and have darker skin colors than those who live in other areas. But if a white-skinned man exposes him/herself to the sun for several days, his/her skin will look dark brown. It is because the ultraviolet ray of the sun creates more melanin in the skin.

Adapted from: Mengapa dan Bagaimana