Personally, I think Fawkes did a great job in Heirs of Ophaesia by adding different skin tones while making it sound poetic. What I do, and I’m not saying YOU have to go by this rule since it’s your choice as the author, is I avoid comparing skin tones to food.
I’ve seen comments from POC readers don’t like the descriptions that correspond to food when describing skin tone. If you want it to sound more aesthetically pleasing, I would maybe suggest words that correlate with precious stones? Onyx, amber, tawny (not a gem, but still a nice word), and bronze are common terms I’ve come across when describing darker skin tones. Here are some pretty words for darker tones. Also, if you ever compare brown eyes to gemstones and don’t want to use amber and topaz, here’s another great place.
And if you wanted the character to have the option of skin tone without it correlating to the story, I’d say just add it along with character customization. Customization shouldn’t have to be optional, but if you want to I say go for it! I thought The Burden did a really good job in character customization.