The Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone emoji 🫱🏾🫲🏼 means agreement, partnership, and greeting, shown as two hands clasping with different skin tones. It is used for sealed deals, collaboration, welcome, and mutual respect, and it lets each person in a handshake be represented by their own skin tone.
What Does the Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone Emoji Mean?
This emoji means two people are agreeing, cooperating, or greeting each other, with each hand drawn in a different skin tone.
The standard handshake emoji shows two hands of the same color. This version splits the tones: the right-reaching hand carries a medium-dark skin tone and the left-reaching hand carries a medium-light skin tone. The result is a visual that reads as a handshake between two distinct people rather than one generic gesture.
The core meaning is the same as any handshake. It signals a deal made, a greeting offered, trust extended, or a partnership formed. The two-tone design adds a layer of representation, which is why people also associate it with diversity, inclusion, and multicultural collaboration.
Quick facts about this emoji
- Category: People & Body
- Unicode name: HANDSHAKE: MEDIUM-DARK SKIN TONE, MEDIUM-LIGHT SKIN TONE
- Unicode version: 14.0
- Emoji version: 14.0
- Shortcode: :handshake_medium_dark_skin_tone_medium_light_skin_tone:
Why Does This Handshake Show Two Different Skin Tones?
It shows two skin tones because Unicode 14.0 let each hand in a handshake take its own skin tone, so the emoji can represent two different people.
Before version 14.0, the handshake emoji (🤝) could only be rendered in one default color, and skin tone modifiers could not be applied to it in a way that worked across platforms. Unicode 14.0 added the ability to pick a tone for each hand individually. That produced a full grid of combinations, and this emoji is one of them.
Under the hood, the emoji is a sequence of five codepoints: U+1FAF1 (rightwards hand), U+1F3FE (medium-dark skin tone modifier), U+200D (zero width joiner), U+1FAF2 (leftwards hand), and U+1F3FC (medium-light skin tone modifier). Your device reads that sequence and draws a single image of two hands meeting.
If your device does not support Unicode 14.0, you may see the pieces instead of the combined emoji: a rightward hand and a leftward hand shown separately, often with colored squares beside them. That is not a bug in the text, only a sign that the system font is too old.
How Do You Use the Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone Emoji?
Use it whenever two people or groups reach an agreement, start a collaboration, or greet each other warmly, especially if you want the image to reflect real people in the exchange.
Because the tones can be matched to the people involved, many users pick this specific pairing to represent themselves and a friend, colleague, or partner. A person with a medium-dark skin tone and a coworker with a medium-light skin tone might choose it to celebrate a project they closed together.
Example messages
- Contract signed, kickoff is Monday 🫱🏾🫲🏼
- Thanks for hearing me out, I think we found a middle ground 🫱🏾🫲🏼
- Welcome to the team! Looking forward to working with you 🫱🏾🫲🏼
It works as a sentence ender, as a standalone reply to confirm an agreement, or as a signature at the close of a professional message.
What Does 🫱🏾🫲🏼 Mean in Texting and on Social Media?
In texting and on social media, it usually means "deal," "we're good," or "nice to meet you," often with a note of unity or mutual respect.
In a one-on-one chat, sending this emoji after an offer confirms that you accept. It is a compact way to say "agreed" without repeating the terms. After a disagreement, it can signal reconciliation: both sides have shaken on it and moved on.
On social media, brands, nonprofits, and community groups use it in posts about partnerships, collaborations, and announcements involving more than one organization. Individuals use it in captions celebrating friendships, new jobs, or cross-cultural connections. Because the two tones are visibly different, the emoji often carries a message about diversity or working across differences.
- Big news: we're teaming up with our friends across town 🫱🏾🫲🏼
- Best collab I've done this year, so grateful 🫱🏾🫲🏼
If you want a lighter, more casual approval instead of a formal agreement, the thumbs up emoji is the usual choice. The handshake carries more weight and suggests a mutual commitment rather than a quick okay.
How Does the Handshake Emoji Look on Different Platforms?
It looks like two clasped hands in two skin tones on every supported platform, though each vendor draws the hands, cuffs, and shading in its own style.
Support depends on the Unicode 14.0 emoji update. According to the platform data for this emoji, it is supported on the following systems:
- 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 you or the person you are messaging are on an older operating system, the emoji may fall back to showing two separate hand symbols. When you want to be sure the meaning gets through, add a few words of text so the message is clear even if the image does not render as intended.
The medium-dark and medium-light tones also sit close together on the skin tone scale, so on some platforms the two hands look similar at small sizes. Zooming in or viewing the emoji at a larger size makes the difference easier to see.
Which Emojis Pair Well With the Two-Tone Handshake?
The best pairings reinforce the idea of agreement, success, or collaboration, such as a thumbs up, a celebration emoji, or a work-related emoji.
- 🫱🏾🫲🏼 + 👍: confirms a deal and signals approval.
- 🫱🏾🫲🏼 + 🎉: celebrates a finished agreement or a new partnership.
- 🫱🏾🫲🏼 + 💼: keeps the tone professional for business announcements.
- 🫱🏾🫲🏼 + 🌍: highlights international or multicultural cooperation.
- 🫱🏾🫲🏼 + 👩💻: works for tech collaborations, hiring announcements, and developer partnerships.
Keep combinations short. One or two supporting emojis make the message feel intentional, while a long string can dilute the clean, respectful feel of a handshake.
What Is the Difference Between This and the Standard Handshake Emoji?
The standard handshake 🤝 uses one default color for both hands, while this version assigns each hand a different tone to represent two specific people.
Meaning-wise, both express agreement and greeting. The difference is personalization. The default emoji is neutral and works anywhere. The tone-specific versions let you match yourself and the person you are addressing, or deliberately show contrast to highlight diversity and partnership between people from different backgrounds.
Notice also that this emoji has no further skin tone options of its own. Its tones are already built into the sequence, so you pick from the full set of pairings rather than applying a modifier afterward. To explore related emojis in this group, browse the full People & Body category.
When Should You Avoid the Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone Emoji?
Avoid it when the tone could feel tokenizing, when the agreement is not actually mutual, or when you are not sure the recipient can see it correctly.
A few situations call for care:
- Insincere deals: sending a handshake after pressuring someone into agreement can come across as sarcastic or manipulative.
- Performative diversity: using a multi-tone handshake in marketing without real partnerships behind it can look hollow.
- Serious or sensitive conversations: a handshake can feel too light after bad news, a dispute, or a conflict that has not truly been resolved.
- Older devices: if the recipient is likely on an outdated system, they may see broken symbols instead of clasped hands.
Context is everything. When a mixed-tone handshake reflects a real agreement between real people, it reads as warm and sincere. When it is used as decoration, readers notice.
How Do You Copy and Paste the Handshake: Medium-dark Skin Tone, Medium-light Skin Tone Emoji?
You can copy it with one click on this page, then paste it anywhere that supports text, such as a message, email, document, or social post.
Click the copy button for 🫱🏾🫲🏼 above, then paste it with Ctrl+V (Windows) or Cmd+V (Mac), or by long-pressing in the text field on your phone. Because the emoji is a sequence of five codepoints, copying it from this page ensures the whole sequence is preserved and renders as one image rather than separate hands.
If you want to build a longer message quickly, try the Emoji Translator to turn text into emojis, or check the trending emojis page to see what people are using right now alongside the handshake.
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