The Many Skintones Of Barbie

[WhiteDove01s]

This is in reference to an ongoing project/experiment of mine of which I will post some info as soon as I have at least one satisfactory result... sorry for being vague, but I'm waiting on test results and really don't want to spoiler this until I've actually confirmed this last bunch, but... on to my question...

Is there any site or reference for how many Barbie skin tones there have been over the years? My current test subject is a headless Palm Beach Always Dressed Barbie, but I know just from the back room pile that Barbies come in many tones. Plus I plan to continue this project for LIV and Obitsu. At least I know Obitsu pretty much comes in two shades, and the LIV dolls each have a specfic shade, plus Alexis also has a darker variant. Barbie, though? I have no idea how many distinct colors there might be there, only that Palm Beach Barbie in painted on purple bikini is the same color as the blond Fashionista in the purple dress.

So, anyone out there who knows more about Barbies have any idea how large a can of worms this is?

[yarwel]

Actually, Obitsu dolls come in four colors.
There is white skin, normal skin, marrone brown, and coconut. The last two were limited edition and are pretty much super rare now so it makes sense you maybe hadn't heard of them.

As to barbies... I have less than fifteen dolls and an estimated seven or eight skin tones. There are definitely more tones, though, as I only have one of the AA tones and only one of the special fairytopia colored dolls(I have the light pink one) I also do not have any of the dead-pale twilight dolls. All in all, I think it's a pretty big can of worms.

[Anderson'sAllPurpose]

There's always this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/winchette1984/6881377346/
It's not official of course, and I'm pretty sure there have been more skin tones through the years (or at least variations over time) but at least it gives you an idea.

[WhiteDove01s]

Looks like I have a LOT of work ahead of me. Thanks a lot for the link, though. It may not be complete or official, but at least it'll give me some idea of what to look for. I likely have a few other tones among the Backroom Barbies, but I'll need actual physical test subjects for the matching proceedure...

As for what all this babbling's about, after two months of work I have achieved one success! So here's what I'm doing:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=8964&p=106057#p106057

[Anderson'sAllPurpose]

Sounde like an interesting experiment at least! Maybe in the case of barbie start with just a few common/current skin tones? Colors sometimes vary between batches too (maybe not with Barbie, but common with cheaper dolls), so it may not be an exact science, but it could be a good starting point perhaps.

[WhiteDove01s]

I plan to start out with the dolls I'm OOAKing (which so far involve a mix of Fashionista, Obitsu, and LIV bodies) and might need the info for, and then branch out to the rest of what I have on hand. I know color variation between batches might be an issue, but usually those are so slight that the match should be close enough to, as you said, at least be a good starting point.

Even with the possible batch variations, a good record of this would also be a help for anyone trying to match heads to bodies.