On Conway's potential function for colored links

The Conway potential function (CPF) for colored links is a convenient version of the multivariable Alexander.Conway polynomial. We give a skein characterization of CPF, much simpler than the one by Murakami. In particular, Conway.s .smoothing of crossings. is not in the axioms. The proof uses a reduction scheme in a twisted group-algebra P n B n , where B n is a braid group and P n is a domain of multi-variable rational fractions. The proof does not use computer algebra tools. An interesting by-product is a characterization of the Alexander.Conway polynomial of knots.