You can change skintones by using simsurgery in SimPE, if you want a totally safe way to do it.

WAY too much. By the time I'm done perfecting my sims in CAS, I'm too worn out to actually play the game!

I make all my sims in CAS, laziness I guess although even when I have bodyshop open and could make sims I don't. I open body shop for quick deletion of things like makeup or to clone an extracted sim. I hit randomize in CAS and then tweak whatever comes up a lot. Unless I really wreck them I always tend to use the first random face template that comes up, I have a number of non default templates. I go through quite a bit of make-up on most sims seeing if they need a blush, freckles, eyelashes, moles or scars, glasses, facial hair etc. Lots of eye colours and hair.

Once done I will change them at a mirror or with gussy up if needed but don't normally change genetics. Sometimes I use the sim manipulator to change personality, zodiac or turns ons if I got it wrong in CAS. In my main integrated hood I did change one child's nose in one family as I had accidentally had a clone and in the Goodies house as somehow I managed to get three male clones. So I modified each one quite a lot.

I haven't used the plastic surgery reward for years, but that could be a fine item for vain sims to use at the clinic.

Thanks! I think I'll give the SimPE method a try. Good to know I need to back up manually first.

I used to give a lot of my sims plastic surgery, and then I realized that it didn't alter the way their offspring would look.

They were born ugly, and their kids would be born ugly as well.

I decided to embrace it instead.