The Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Light Skin Tone emoji (🫱🏾🫲🏻) means agreement, partnership, and greeting between two people of different skin tones. It shows a right hand with a medium-dark tone clasping a left hand with a light tone, and it is used for deals, cooperation, welcome, and inclusive messages about unity and trust.
What Does the Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Light Skin Tone Emoji Mean?
This emoji means two people are connecting, agreeing, or cooperating, and it says so with two visibly different skin tones in one handshake.
The classic handshake emoji (🤝) has long stood for deals, introductions, and mutual respect. This version keeps that core meaning but lets the sender pick a distinct tone for each hand. The result reads as a pairing of two individuals rather than one generic gesture.
Because the two hands are different, the emoji often carries an extra layer of meaning: diversity, cross-cultural friendship, mixed-heritage families, or teamwork across backgrounds. That makes it a natural fit for messages about inclusion and representation.
Core meanings at a glance
- Agreement: a deal is done or terms are accepted.
- Partnership: two people or groups are joining forces.
- Greeting: a warm hello or welcome.
- Trust and unity: mutual respect between different people.
What Are the Technical Details of This Emoji?
This emoji is a ZWJ sequence from the People & Body category, introduced in Unicode 14.0 and Emoji 14.0.
Its official Unicode name is HANDSHAKE: MEDIUM-DARK SKIN TONE, LIGHT SKIN TONE. The sequence is made of five code points: U+1FAF1 (rightwards hand), U+1F3FE (medium-dark skin tone modifier), U+200D (zero width joiner), U+1FAF2 (leftwards hand), and U+1F3FB (light skin tone modifier).
That structure explains why the emoji can show two different tones. Before Unicode 14.0, the handshake had a single design in one tone at most. The newer sequence builds the handshake out of a right hand and a left hand, each given its own skin tone modifier, then joins them with the zero width joiner.
The standard shortcode is :handshake_medium_dark_skin_tone_light_skin_tone:. It is a specific, fully qualified emoji in its own right, so you do not need to apply a skin tone to it. It does not offer further skin tone support.
How Do You Use the Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Light Skin Tone Emoji?
Use it whenever a handshake fits the message and you want the visual to reflect two different people coming together.
It works best when the sender or recipient wants personal representation. A person with a medium-dark skin tone greeting someone with a light skin tone, or a mixed-heritage pair celebrating a milestone, can now send an emoji that looks like them.
Common situations
- Closing a deal: confirming a contract, sale, or negotiation.
- Welcoming someone: greeting a new teammate, neighbor, or client.
- Thanking a collaborator: acknowledging a joint effort.
- Celebrating friendship: marking a bond across cultures or backgrounds.
Example messages:
- Contract signed, pleasure doing business with you 🫱🏾🫲🏻
- Welcome to the team, we are glad you are here 🫱🏾🫲🏻
- Thank you for partnering with us on this project 🫱🏾🫲🏻
What Does 🫱🏾🫲🏻 Mean in Texting and on Social Media?
In texting and social posts, it usually signals a friendly agreement, a thank-you, or a message of unity between two different people.
In a one-on-one chat, it often works as a quick "deal" or "we are good." A short reply like Sounds like a plan 🫱🏾🫲🏻 confirms an arrangement without extra words.
On social media, brands, nonprofits, and community groups tend to use handshake emojis when announcing partnerships, collaborations, or events. The two-tone version stands out in posts about diversity, multicultural communities, and inclusive teams, because the visual itself makes the point.
It also works well in caption form for personal photos: friends from different backgrounds, a colleague farewell, or a mentor and mentee pairing. Pair the emoji with a short statement and let the image carry the rest.
How Does This Emoji Look on Different Platforms?
It appears with the same two-tone meaning everywhere, but each platform draws the hands in its own style, and support depends on a recent operating system version.
Because it was added in Unicode 14.0, older devices cannot display it correctly. Where support is missing, you may see two separate hand symbols with colored squares, or a blank box, instead of a single joined handshake.
Minimum supported versions
- Apple: iOS 15.4+ and macOS 12.3+
- Google: Android 12L+
- Microsoft: Windows 11 22H2+
- Samsung: One UI 5.0+
- WhatsApp: version 2.22+
- Twitter/X: Twemoji 14.0+
If a friend sees a broken version of your message, the cause is almost always an out-of-date device. Updating the operating system or messaging app normally fixes it. If you are unsure whether your audience can see it, the standard People & Body emojis page is a good place to browse alternatives with wider support.
Which Emojis Pair Well With the Two-Tone Handshake?
Pair it with emojis that reinforce agreement, celebration, or gratitude so the message reads clearly in a glance.
- 👍 Thumbs Up to add approval to a confirmed deal.
- 👩💻 Woman Technologist when announcing a tech partnership or collaboration.
- 👀 Eyes for a teaser such as "big announcement coming" before revealing a partnership.
- 🎉 or 🙌 to celebrate a finished deal or milestone.
- 🌍 or ❤️ for messages about global unity and friendship.
Example caption: New partnership, who is ready? 👀 Details tomorrow 🫱🏾🫲🏻
Keep combinations short. One or two supporting emojis make the handshake clearer; a long string of them dilutes the message.
When Should You Avoid the Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Light Skin Tone Emoji?
Avoid it when the specific skin tone pairing could confuse your message or when your audience cannot display it.
Because the emoji carries two distinct tones, readers may assume it refers to the specific people involved. In a business announcement where tone is irrelevant, a neutral handshake (🤝) can keep the focus on the deal rather than on who is shaking hands.
Also avoid it in sensitive contexts where a handshake would feel dismissive, such as formal complaints, apologies you want to take seriously, or conflicts that are not resolved. A handshake emoji implies agreement, and sending it too early can read as presuming consent.
Finally, think about device support. If you are messaging someone with an older phone or computer, they may see fallback symbols instead of the intended image. In that case, a simple text sentence is safer. For a quick check of how text translates to emoji, the Emoji Translator can help you find alternatives.
How Is This Different From the Standard Handshake Emoji?
The standard handshake (🤝) uses a single design, while this version shows two specific skin tones to represent two distinct people.
Both mean the same basic thing: agreement, greeting, cooperation. The difference is personalization. Choosing the two-tone version tells the reader the handshake is between two individuals with different backgrounds, which is a deliberate and often meaningful choice.
This emoji also differs from reaction emojis such as 🤷🏻♀️ Woman Shrugging or 🤦🏻♀️ Woman Facepalming, which express a single person's attitude. The handshake is inherently about two people and a shared outcome, so it fits messages about mutual action rather than personal reaction.
For more people-focused gestures and hand symbols, browse the full People & Body category, or check what is popular on the trending emojis page.
How Do You Copy and Paste the Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Light Skin Tone Emoji?
You can copy this emoji with one click on this page and paste it into any app that supports Unicode 14.0 emoji.
Click the emoji (🫱🏾🫲🏻) at the top of the page, and it is copied to your clipboard instantly. Then paste it with Ctrl+V on Windows, Cmd+V on Mac, or a long press and Paste on a phone.
Copying is more reliable than hunting through an emoji keyboard, because this sequence is built from five code points and can be hard to assemble by hand. A single click guarantees the full sequence arrives intact, so the two skin tones stay joined in one handshake.
Once pasted, check that the emoji displays as two clasped hands. If it appears as separate hands or a box, the recipient's device likely needs an update. Otherwise, you are ready to send your message of agreement, welcome, or unity.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!