The most widely used scale to indicate skin type is the Fitzpatrick Scale, named after Thomas B. Fitzpatrick who defined it in 1975. A person's skin type indicates how sensitive the skin is to the sun, i. H. how fast it burns itself. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't just mean how fair your skin is. There are other factors that go into determining your skin type.
Thomas Fitzpatrick measured the UV dose at which people burn themselves and derived distinguishing features (see also UV dose to determine the understand values). The Fitzpatrick scale distinguishes six skin types, with skin type 1 being very sun-sensitive skin and skin type 6 people being hardly sun-sensitive.
The Fitzpatrick scale
| Skin type | Sunburn UV Dose |
|---|---|
| 1 | 166 UVIm |
| 2 | 200 UVIm |
| 3 | 266 UVIm |
| 4 | 333 UVIm |
| 5 | 533 UVIm |
| 6 | 1000 UVIm |
The most accurate way to determine a person's sunburn UV dose is as follows: The test person is exposed to a UV lamp and observes when the skin begins to burn. However, since this is time-consuming and dangerous, various methods have been developed to infer the approximate skin type from a person's external appearance and history. These two methods are the most common:
- Questions about skin color, hair color, etc.: Different calculation methods are used here to calculate the skin type using external characteristics such as skin color, number of birthmarks, hair color and eye color as well as personal and family history of skin cancer.
- Sunburn and tanning behavior questions: This is the original method Fitzpatrick used to define skin types. It is based on two questions: How quickly do you burn yourself in the midday sun? and How easy is it for you to get a tan?.
In the end, it doesn't really matter which method you use to estimate your skin type. On the one hand, because it's only an estimate anyway. On the other hand, because that can change over the course of a year.
Important: Even if you know your sunburn dose, it does not mean that every UV dose below is safe for you. Even without sunburn, UV exposure can cause damage to the skin that accumulates over a lifetime. The skin type and thus the sunburn dose should only give you an indication so that you can protect yourself better.
