The invention relates to a skin identification method based on a skin color model. The skin identification method comprises the steps of (1) carrying out face identification on an image, and obtaining a face area, (2) carrying out mean value computing on the obtained face area obtained in the step (1), and obtaining a mean skin color, (3) computing a skin color probability mapping table of the current image according to the mean skin color obtained in the step (2), and (4) carrying out skin color identification on the current image according to the skin color probability mapping table obtained in the step (3), and obtaining a result graph of the skin color probability of the current image. According to the skin identification method, the skin color mean value after face detection is used for building the skin color model, the skin identification method can adapt to images shot under various conditions, and wide covering of the application range is achieved. In addition, according to the skin identification method, training data are not required to be accumulated, implementation can be easily achieved, comparison with huge training data is not required, and the operation efficiency is improved. Identification is carried out through the skin color model, the identification accuracy is high, and the defect that under excessively bright or excessively dark conditions, skin identification is not accurate is overcome.