In as much as 15 percent of the white population (or people who tend to have lighter eye colors), eye color changes with age. People who had deep brown eyes during their youth and adulthood may experience a lightening of their eye pigment as they enter middle age, giving them hazel eyes.
When your pupils shrink or dilate, the color of your eyes may seem to change. For example, if your pupils widen, not as much of your irises are exposed, and the remaining irises look darker. On the other hand, when your pupils are smaller, your eye color may appear lighter.
Natural Age-Related Eye Color Changes
As they are exposed to light, melanin production increases, causing the color of their eyes to shift. However, eye color changes can also occur as a person ages. Those with lighter color eyes – especially Caucasians – may see their eyes lighten over time.
The most likely explanation for a change in eye color is to change the amount of pigment producing proteins made. There are lots of cases where something in the environment changes the amount of protein that is made. The color of a person's clothing can “bring out” their eyes, making them appear a different color.
In most people, the answer is no. Eye color fully matures in infancy and remains the same for life. But in a small percentage of adults, eye color can naturally become either noticeably darker or lighter with age. What determines eye color is the pigment melanin.
In as much as 15 percent of the white population (or people who tend to have lighter eye colors), eye color changes with age. People who had deep brown eyes during their youth and adulthood may experience a lightening of their eye pigment as they enter middle age, giving them hazel eyes.
Minor Changes Are Common
For example, long-term sun exposure may cause your eyes to darken slightly, while a small percentage of Caucasian people's eyes lighten as they age. For the most part, though, your eye color will not actually change, and significant changes may be a sign of a larger problem.
Sometimes, a change in eye color is just a simple part of aging and is harmless. However, there are a few things that can permanently change melanin levels. Ocular diseases, such as pigmentary glaucoma, can change melanin levels. Genetics could also cause eye color to change over time.
As you grow up, the melanin level increases around your pupil, making the eye darker. However, 10-15% of Caucasian eyes change to a lighter color as they age, as pigment in the iris changes or degrades.
From 10 to 15 percent of the Caucasian population will see a change in their eye color as they age. In the case of you and your father, the eye color changed due either to a gradual decrease in the number of pigment granules in the iris or to a degradation of the granules.
The top layer of the iris — or stroma — contains melanocyte cells which make granules of the brownish pigment melanin. The more pigment is produced, the darker the eye colour. However, over time the number of these pigment-making cells can start to dwindle, and the ones that are left also produce less pigment.
We found that green is the most popular lens colour, with brown coming in a close second, despite it being one of the most common eye colours. Although blue and hazel are seen as the most attractive eye colours for men and women they are surprisingly the least popular.
In sunlights, the pupil constricts and the iris stretches and the melanin pigments also stretch over a larger area and the color of the eye appears to become lighter in color.
Hazel eyes are more common in North Africa, the Middle East, and Brazil, as well as in people of Spanish heritage.
Hazel eyes mostly consist of shades of brown and green. Much like gray eyes, hazel eyes may appear to “change color” from green to light brown to gold.
Brown eyes may also have some green in them. However, it is not nearly as noticeable as it is when someone has hazel eyes. With brown and hazel eyes, the other colors may appear as rings or flecks of color. This is part of what makes these eyes so distinctive.
The short answer: no. The pigment melanin determines your eye color. Eyes with a lot of melanin will be naturally darker.
Green Eyes
Green is considered by some to be the actual rarest eye color in the world, though others would say it's been dethroned by red, violet, and grey eyes.
Yorkshire-based iridologist John Andrews said: "Alas, it is a misconception that eyes change color with diet. It is a scientific impossibility." Yvonne Davis, an iridologist from London, was similarly skeptical but explained how the color change could potentially have happened.
Just as in your skin changing with the sun, eyes become darker, or even develop freckles. Genetics– The amount of melanin in the iris will decrease over time, just as hair color changes as we age, and can vary due to genetic determination.
Trauma can hurt or damage the iris, which can lead to tissue loss, according to the AAO. The loss of tissue can make the eye color look completely different. It has been quoted in books from fact to fairy tale that someone's mood can change the color of the eye.
In another study in the US, which tracked more than 1,300 twins from infancy to adulthood, eye colour usually stopped changing by the age of six, though in some cases (10-20% of those studied), it continued to change throughout adolescence and into adulthood.
Brown eyes are the most common: Over half the people in the world have them, according to the AAO. In fact, about 10,000 years ago, all humans had brown eyes.
Hazel eyes are sometimes mistaken for green or brown eyes. They are not as rare as green eyes, but are rarer than blue eyes. Only about 5 percent of the population worldwide has the hazel eye genetic mutation. After brown eyes, they have the most melanin. .