I agree that I could have made the skin colors a lot more natural.

To be fair, I think that's more of a stylistic choice than a problem. It works pretty well since the whole image has a blue tint.

On the other hand, I would like to see a version halfway in between the two. Can you tone down the vignette some and bring back the detail in her arms and left as well as top (from our perspective) of her hair? I have a feeling you did that partially because of the hell that was separating her from the background though, because I'm not sure I could have done it convincingly enough. Tell your friend to shoot with the model farther away from a different colored background!