Skin and hair color

The amount of melanin in the body determines the skin and hair color. Melanin is present in different colors such as yellow, black or reddish brown and the variations in these will determine the color of the skin. So basically whether you are fair or not depends on just one thing. These things cannot be altered and they are usually passed down through genes. If the parents are fair then there is a good chance that the baby will also be fair. The melanin distribution in the higher levels of the epidermis determines the skin color of a person as well.

Like most features, hair colour is caused by a combination of your genes and your environment. We know that natural hair colour depends on the amounts of two substances in the hair: eumelanin and pheomelanin. Blondes have a small amount of eumelanin; brown haired people have a higher level and black haired people have the most. he amounts of these pigments depend on the genes you inherit from your parents, but they can also be changed by your environment eg if you spend a long time in the sun, your hair will bleach.
Three factors contribute to skin color: 1) the amount and kind (yellow, reddish brown, or black) of melanin in the epidermis; 2) the amount of carotene (yellow) in the epidermis and subcutaneous tissue; and 3) the amount of oxygen bound to hemoglobin (red blood cell pigment) in the dermal blood cells. Skin color is genetically determined, for the most part.