MEASUREMENT METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CUTANEOUS CONSTITUENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and apparatus for measuring the quantities of cutaneous consituents such as melanin and cutaneous characteristics of spots and freckles on a face with high preciseness. SOLUTION: In an illumination photo-detective optical system portion 12 of this apparatus, the light of an optical source produces a diffuse reflection on the internal wall surface of an integrating sphere and illuminates uniformly a measurement specimen 16, and in the light which reflects on the surface of the measurement specimen, the light which reflects at a certain angle enters the photo-detective optical system and is processed at a colorimetric-value arithmetic processor portion 14. In this case, the data of colorimetric values of the skin and the quantities of cutaneous constituents are subjected to multiple regression analysis and a multiple regression formula is obtained in advance. By using this multiple regression formula, the quantity of at least one substance selected from groups consisting of such cutaneous constituents as melanin, hemoglobin oxide and reductive hemoglobin is obtained from the colorimetric values of the skin, and the content in the skin is measured.