This book is a work of scientific popularization, based on research carried out in Mozambique (2008) on the impact of skin color on the appreciation of physical beauty. The dissemination of the results of this research was accompanied by a vast debate in the local media (television, radio, newspapers) and a great deal of controversy broke out at the time. The interest, debate and controversy sparked by this research are probably linked to the fact that this subject touches on the national "collective unconscious" underlying the effects of Portuguese colonization. Thus, this book, while reporting on the research in question, portrays the public debate that took place around it.