The Handshake: Dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone emoji 🫱🏿🫲🏼 means agreement, partnership, and respectful greeting between two people of different skin tones. It shows two hands meeting in a handshake, one dark and one medium-light, and is used for deals, collaboration, welcomes, and messages celebrating unity and diversity.
What Does the Handshake: Dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone Emoji Mean?
This emoji means a handshake between two people, shown with a dark skin tone hand on the left and a medium-light skin tone hand on the right, and it stands for agreement, cooperation, and mutual respect.
The standard handshake emoji has always shown one generic hand on each side. Before this version existed, people who wanted their skin tone reflected in a handshake had no real option. This emoji fixes that by letting each hand carry its own tone, so the image can represent two specific people instead of an abstract pair.
The core meanings are the same as the classic handshake:
- Agreement: a deal is made, terms are accepted, or a plan is confirmed.
- Partnership: two people, teams, or organizations are working together.
- Greeting: a warm, formal, or friendly welcome.
- Trust: a gesture of good faith between two sides.
The mixed skin tones add a second layer. Many people read this pairing as a symbol of multicultural friendship, inclusive teamwork, and bridging differences.
What Are the Technical Details of This Emoji?
This emoji is a sequence of five codepoints, U+1FAF1 U+1F3FF U+200D U+1FAF2 U+1F3FC, and it belongs to the People & Body category.
Here is how the sequence works:
- U+1FAF1 is the rightwards hand, which becomes the left-side hand in the picture.
- U+1F3FF is the dark skin tone modifier applied to that hand.
- U+200D is the zero width joiner that links the two hands into one emoji.
- U+1FAF2 is the leftwards hand, which becomes the right-side hand in the picture.
- U+1F3FC is the medium-light skin tone modifier applied to that hand.
The emoji was added in Unicode 14.0 and Emoji 14.0. Its shortcode is :handshake_dark_skin_tone_medium_light_skin_tone:. Because it is built from a joined sequence, it does not offer further skin tone options on top of the two already chosen.
How Do You Use the Handshake: Dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone Emoji?
You use it whenever you want to mark an agreement, a partnership, or a respectful greeting and you want the image to show two different skin tones.
Business and work messages
In professional chats, this emoji works as a friendly seal on a decision or a new working relationship. It is warmer than a plain thumbs up and carries a sense of mutual commitment.
- Contract signed, looking forward to working together 🫱🏿🫲🏼
- Great meeting today, we have a deal 🫱🏿🫲🏼
Personal and community messages
Outside of work, it fits friendly reconciliations, welcome messages, and community posts about connection across backgrounds.
- New neighbors, welcome to the block! 🫱🏿🫲🏼
If you only want a quick approval rather than a mutual agreement, the thumbs up emoji is a lighter choice.
What Does 🫱🏿🫲🏼 Mean in Texting and on Social Media?
In texting and on social media, this emoji usually signals "we agree," "deal," or "great to connect," often with an added note about unity or diversity.
On social platforms, brands and organizations use mixed skin tone handshakes in posts about partnerships, collaborations, and inclusion. Individuals use them to celebrate friendships, thank someone for their help, or confirm a plan. In group chats, it can close out a negotiation about plans, such as agreeing on a time and place.
Tone is generally sincere. It is rarely used sarcastically, because the handshake image is strongly tied to honesty and good faith. A sarcastic "sure, deal" is better served by an emoji with a more playful face.
Which Skin Tone Combinations Can You Choose, and Why Does It Matter?
You can pick from many two-tone combinations, and choosing the pair that reflects you and the person you are addressing makes the message feel personal.
The Unicode Standard lets each hand in this handshake take its own skin tone, so the pair in this emoji (dark and medium-light) is one of many possible combinations. Some people choose tones that match their own and a friend's. Others choose a combination for a specific message, such as a post celebrating a cross-cultural partnership.
There is no wrong choice. If you are unsure which tones to use, a same-tone handshake or the default yellow handshake is a perfectly acceptable neutral option. For more emojis where appearance can be personalized, browse the People & Body emoji category.
How Does This Emoji Look on Different Platforms?
The emoji appears on all major platforms that support Emoji 14.0, but the exact artwork differs by vendor, and older devices may show two separate hand emojis instead.
Support begins with these versions:
- Apple: iOS 15.4+ and macOS 12.3+
- Google: Android 12L+
- Microsoft: Windows 11 22H2+
- Samsung: One UI 5.0+
- Meta: WhatsApp 2.22+
- Twitter: Twemoji 14.0+
If a device does not recognize the full sequence, it may display the two hands with their skin tones side by side, or show boxes or question marks. Nothing is wrong with your message in that case. The recipient simply needs a software update to see the combined handshake. When you are writing to someone on an older phone, adding a short word like "deal" or "agreed" ensures your meaning comes through either way.
Which Emojis Pair Well With 🫱🏿🫲🏼?
This emoji pairs best with other positive, action-oriented emojis that reinforce agreement, effort, and celebration.
- 👍 Thumbs Up: adds approval to the agreement. See the thumbs up emoji page.
- 👩💻 Woman Technologist: fits tech partnerships and work collaborations. See the woman technologist emoji page.
- 🎉 Party Popper: celebrates a finished deal.
- 💼 Briefcase: reinforces a business context.
- 🤝 Handshake: a neutral version can be used alongside tone-specific ones when addressing a group.
If you want to see what else is popular right now, check the trending emojis list.
When Should You Avoid the Handshake: Dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone Emoji?
Avoid it when the situation is tense, uncertain, or when you are not actually agreeing to anything, because the emoji implies a settled and sincere commitment.
Here are the situations where another choice is wiser:
- Unfinished negotiations: sending a handshake before terms are confirmed can be read as a promise.
- Serious conflicts: a handshake during an argument can feel dismissive unless both sides have truly resolved things.
- Tokenizing diversity: using mixed skin tone handshakes in corporate posts without any real substance behind them can come across as performative.
- Uncertain readers: if the recipient might not see the emoji correctly, add a word to carry the meaning.
For moments of uncertainty or confusion, a shrug like the woman shrugging emoji says "I'm not sure" far more honestly.
How Do You Copy and Paste the Handshake: Dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone Emoji?
You can copy this emoji with one click on this page and paste it into any message, document, or social post.
Click the emoji at the top of the page to copy 🫱🏿🫲🏼 to your clipboard, then paste it with Ctrl+V on Windows or Command+V on Mac, or by long pressing in a text field on mobile. Because the emoji is a multi-part sequence, copying it directly is more reliable than trying to type each part by hand.
Want to turn a whole sentence into emojis? Try the Emoji Translator to convert text into emoji form and find other ways to say "agreed" or "welcome."
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