Can a hand prosthesis match skin where the palm and back are different tones?
Yes. Where the back of the hand and the palm differ noticeably in colour, Silobionic measures each surface separately and paints both tones into one prosthesis. These two glove-type hand prostheses, made for customers with darker skin, show how we matched colour, palm lines, creases, nails and fit.
Why treat the palm and the back of the hand separately?
The palm is often lighter than the back of the hand. The darker your skin — or the more time you spend working or playing outdoors — the sharper that difference tends to be, sometimes with a clear line at the wrist or along the side of the hand. Painting a prosthesis in a single colour erases that line, which can make it look less natural, not more.
So we measure the back of the hand and the palm separately with E-SKIN (SPECTROMATCH, UK), look at the colour of the nails, palm lines and creases too, and mix pigments for each area. We call this a two-tone finish.
Case 1: a left hand with the thumb and index finger remaining
Our customer had the thumb and index finger remaining on the left hand, so we made a glove-type prosthesis that covers the hand and leaves the remaining fingers exposed. With darker skin, the border between palm and back was distinct, and the nails and palm lines also differed in colour from the back of the hand.
Fit mattered as much as colour. A good number of people come to us after a previous prosthesis pressed painfully on their affected area. Hands are always on show, so shape matters, but the priority is a prosthesis that stays steady without squeezing. Before making the final piece, we used a check socket (a temporary trial socket) to check length, thickness and tightness, and adjusted it to our customer’s feedback.
Scarring at the amputation site meant the edge between prosthesis and skin could not be hidden entirely, but on the hand the prosthesis blended in without looking out of place.
Case 2: a left hand missing the index, ring and little fingers
Our second customer had lost the index, ring and little fingers of the left hand, and again we made a glove-type prosthesis. The contrast was less pronounced than in case 1, but the tone still shifted from the wrist and differed between palm and back.
At the check-socket stage we checked comfort and proportion — whether length and width sat right against the other hand and the remaining fingers. Because the final piece was modelled on the other hand, it carries over not just skin colour but hand shape, nail shape and colour, palm lines and fine creases.
The two cases side by side
| Case 1 | Case 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Remaining fingers | Thumb and index | Thumb and middle |
| Type | Glove-type | Glove-type |
| Skin tone | Sharp palm–back border; nails and palm lines also differ | Tone shifts from the wrist; palm and back differ |
| Main focus | A fit that does not press; the scarred edge | Proportion against the remaining fingers |
Travelling to Seoul for your prosthesis?
Customers from many countries come to us, and whatever your skin tone, the method is the same: measure, then mix colour area by area. Send photos of your hand, including the palm, before you book travel, and we will confirm your schedule in an online consultation in English. The standard process is three visits over about 4–6 weeks. Results vary from person to person, and we photograph every before-and-after under the same conditions, with a standard colour chart and no retouching.
Frequently asked questions
My palm and the back of my hand are very different colours. Will the prosthesis be one colour?
No. We measure each surface separately and paint the prosthesis in two tones, matching the nails and palm lines as well.
Can you match darker skin?
Yes. E-SKIN measures your skin tone digitally and we mix pigments from that reading. Results vary from person to person.
What is a glove-type hand prosthesis?
A hand prosthesis for partial finger loss that covers the hand like a glove and leaves the remaining fingers exposed.
Will the edge show if I have scarring?
Where scarring remains, the edge may not be hidden completely. In this case it was slightly visible, but the hand as a whole did not look out of place.
