The Fitzpatrick Scale in Your Keyboard
Before 2015, every human emojiEmoji
A Japanese word (絵文字) meaning 'picture character' — small graphical symbols used in digital communication to express ideas, emotions, and objects. had the same yellow skin. Emoji 1.0 changed that by introducing five skin tone modifiers based on the Fitzpatrick dermatological scale, a classification system developed by Thomas B. Fitzpatrick in 1975 to describe skin's response to UV light.
The five modifiers map to Fitzpatrick types I-VI:
| Modifier | Code PointCode Point A unique numerical value assigned to each character in the Unicode standard, written in the format U+XXXX (e.g., U+1F600 for 😀). |
Fitzpatrick Type | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🏻 | U+1F3FB | Type I-II (Light) | 👋🏻 |
| 🏼 | U+1F3FC | Type III (Medium-Light) | 👋🏼 |
| 🏽 | U+1F3FD | Type IV (Medium) | 👋🏽 |
| 🏾 | U+1F3FE | Type V (Medium-Dark) | 👋🏾 |
| 🏿 | U+1F3FF | Type VI (Dark) | 👋🏿 |
The default yellow (no modifier) serves as a generic, non-realistic skin tone.
How They Work Technically
A skin tone modifierSkin Tone Modifier
Five Unicode modifier characters based on the Fitzpatrick scale that change the skin color of human emoji (U+1F3FB to U+1F3FF). is simply appended after a base emoji character. No ZWJZero Width Joiner (ZWJ)
An invisible Unicode character (U+200D) used to join multiple emoji into a single composite emoji, such as combining people and objects into profession emoji. needed — the modifier directly follows the base:
👍 (U+1F44D) + 🏽 (U+1F3FD) = 👍🏽
Not all emoji support skin tones. Only emoji depicting human body parts or people can be modified. Abstract emoji (💀 skull, 👻 ghost) and non-human characters don't accept modifiers.
When a modifier follows an emoji that doesn't support it, the modifier is shown separately as a colored square — a visual cue that the combination isn't valid.
Multi-Person Skin Tones
One of the more complex aspects of skin tone modifiers is how they work with multi-person emoji. Starting with Emoji 12.1 (2019), handshake and couple emoji support different skin tones per person:
🫱🏻🫲🏿 = Light hand + ZWJ + Dark hand
This required new ZWJ sequences because each person in the emoji can have an independent skin tone. The combinations multiply quickly — two-person emoji with 5 skin tone options each create 25 possible combinations.
The Impact
Skin tone modifiers were one of the most significant additions to the emoji standard. They acknowledged that a universal communication system should represent the diversity of its users.
Usage data shows interesting patterns: - The default yellow remains the most commonly used across all human emoji - Skin tone usage varies significantly by region and demographic - Many users consistently use one skin tone across all modified emoji - Professional/workplace contexts tend to use the default yellow more often
Platform Differences
Different platforms render skin tones with slightly different color values:
- Apple uses warm, naturalistic tones
- Google tends toward slightly more saturated tones
- Samsung has historically used different hue ranges
- Microsoft uses tones consistent with their Fluent design system
These differences are subtle but real — the same skin tone modifier can look noticeably different across platforms.
Try Analyzing Skin Tone Sequences
Paste any skin-toned emoji into our Sequence Analyzer to see exactly how the base emoji and modifier combine at the code point level.