Black skin, white skin, Asian skin – what’s the difference?
last updated on 14 November 2011
Surprisingly (or not), it’s more than just skin color that separates a black person from a white person, and a white person from an Asian.
Scientists have discovered structural differences between black, white and Asian skin in terms of its:
- thickness
- water content
- lipids (fat and fat soluble vitamins)
Differences between black skin and white skin
- The epidermis of black skin contains less glutathione than white skin. (Reduced glutathione may be responsible for skin color. Inhibition of epidermal glutathione system leads to darker skin, and glutathione in the epidermis has been shown to inhibit melanogenesis.)
- In the epidermis of white skin, hyperpigmentation or tanning is always followed by a drop in glutathione reductase and reduced glutathione.
- Black skin have larger melanosomes than white skin.
- Black skin has a higher electrical resistance than white skin, which suggests greater cohesion and thickness.
- Black skin has more and larger fibroblasts than white skin. The fibroblasts in black skin are also more multi-nucleated. This can lead to more abnormal scarring and keloid formation.
- Black skin also has larger mast cell granules than white skin, which may also play a part in keloid formation.
- The stratum corneum of black skin has more layers and stronger cells than in white skin.
- Black skin and Asian skin have thicker and more compact dermis than white skin. This is also why blacks and Asians have fewer facial wrinkles than whites.
- Black skin has more casual lipids and more moisture in the stratum corneum than white skin.
- Black skin sheds its outer layers more (increased desquamation) than white skin
- Black skin has 50% lower ceramides than white or Hispanic skin. Asians have the highest skin ceramide levels.
- Black and Indian skin has two times more alkali-insoluble melanin (darker DHI-enriched eumelanin) than white skin, hispanic skin and Chinese skin.
- Black skin has a lower pH than white skin.
What does this mean?
The differences between our skin can determine several things.
- Effectiveness of topical skin lightening creams and lotions
- Safety of chemical peels and skin laser treatments
- Our skin’s healing response to wounds and the formation of abnormal scars
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Try to use hydroquinone and mercury free skin-lightening products. Whitening skin care has been a cosmetic concern for thousands of years, all around the world. From all races in Asia, the Caribbean, India to Europe and even with the Caucasian race.
hello how black skin can be converted in white skin
Woman / man, be proud that ur black!
Be proud of whatever race u r!
Weather ur asian or black or white or blue or orange or even purple!
BE PROUD OF WHO U R!!!
i don’t know whether i understood what you said but i am a black of fair complexion, i don’t scar easily, like i get a deep cut, within hours the flesh is back together, after two days, it’s all healed with no medication and you will never find any kind of scarring….that fact about blacks scarring easily…not so true!!
wish you could write a more elaborate conclusion.
actually sonia it varies and if i get one scratch it will heal very quickly about a week depending on how deep the cut is….and after the scaling falls off it either gets darker than the skin sourounding it or significantly light than the skin around it..although the dark scars dont go away it takes two years for the lighter to turn some what closer to what it was originally but still you can see where the scar is meaning it never disapeared completely …but its different for the face i have had many deep cuts from falling over or hitting something and those cuts never left scars they just disapeared because i used turmeric powed right when i cut it that really helps the scarring to never occur…magic all you have to do if you ever get a cut on your face is rinse the blood off and the germs with water and make a turmeric paste and apply it..there will be scaling for a couple of days and when it falls off it will be slightly lighter ofcourse new skin..after that your new skin will look exactly like your normal complexion and after that it will be hard to find exactly where the scar was…
“Black skin has more and larger fibroblasts than white skin. The fibroblasts in black skin are also more multi-nucleated. This can lead to more abnormal scarring and keloid formation.”
sonia, you said you are black but with a fair complexion. i can only guess that you are saying that you have light skin. this means down the line you are mixed. your scars would heal better than, lets just say, the guy in the pic at the top of the page. also, scars depend on which direction and how deep the cuts are.
I want to bleach my skin as white as I can. Why not, we were all white when we were born anyways.
Girl! You got it so backwards! First of all, have you ever seen a white person have a black child without mixing races? No, but you have seen the opposite, think of albino. The first people were black. I believe that when God cursed Adam and Eve it was by taking the color from their children, to make them suffer. And anyone knows that when your children do not look like you, you are naturally upset.
Food for thought. Cain may have been Albino . . .
Now I am not saying that Albinoism is a curse it itself but that it was used to get Adam and Eve’s attention.
Haha, i hope that guy is joking about skin bleaching. Intresting article. I knew black peoples skin was thicker than white peoples. My girlfrend rolled her eyes at me when i said somthind about that related to wrink
Es or somthing or other. Haha. (im white, shes black).
When people say “White” they normally refer it to a “Caucasian” person. When someone wants to do whitening, or wants white skin. This doesn’t mean they want to be white. Actually, correctly speaking East Asians tend to actually literally be closer to the color white-skin then actualy white people. (Who have the tendency to have spots, red-faced, freckles, hair, pink undertone, thin-skin sometimes blue and purple from seeing veins through their skin) since asians have a variety of skin color (olive-tone, tan for south east asians, and others have yellowtone especially when they’ve been in the sun and all it “discoloration”) because they have more malin in their skin. Yet a lot of them are “one-toned” since they have thicker skin and VERY pale and a lot of my japanese friends have literally white skin naturally. When a person wants to whiten/brighten their skin is it is to make their skin eventoned, correct discoloration and to fix spots then may have had from the sun.