Background: At present there is no standard nomenclature for describing the diversity of human constitutive skin colour.

Objectives: To develop a standard nomenclature to describe human constitutive skin colour.

Methods: Monthly focus group discussions were carried out among a multidisciplinary group of specialists over a 7-month period.

Topics covered were limitations and unmet needs of current nomenclature(s) pertaining to human cutaneous diversity,  practical considerations about the function and role of any proposed nomenclature pertaining to human cutaneous diversity, review of the cellular basis and current molecular genetic understanding of variation in human skin pigmentation and in vivo methods to evaluate human skin pigmentation. In addition, a preliminary review of the published literature was undertaken to collate data on published skin reflectance measurements, notably melanin index values for well-referenced human populations.

Results: We developed a five-point scale to describe the full spectrum of human constitutive skin colour, termed the Eumelanin Human Skin Colour Scale.

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