When Can Eyes Change Color? Typically, a person's eye color becomes permanent about three years after birth. Once eye color has set, the color usually won't change. However, several factors can influence your eye color and whether or not it changes to a different pigment.
Eye color can change over time, but only slightly. The eye color of most babies will darken in the first few years of life. During this time, the body produces a darker pigment, known as melanin. Expansion or contraction of the iris can also lead to minute changes in eye color.
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.
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. Conversely, someone born with hazel eyes might see their irises get darker as they grow older.
The colors in your environment, including lighting and your clothes, can give the illusion of eye color change. "The factors that can cause eyes to change colors—or appear to have different colors—include genes, diseases, medications and trauma," said Omar Chaudhary, MD, an ophthalmologist in Potomac, Md.
The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue.
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.
When broken down by gender, men ranked gray, blue, and green eyes as the most attractive, while women said they were most attracted to green, hazel, and gray eyes. Despite brown eyes ranking at the bottom of our perceived attraction scale, approximately 79% of the world's population sports melanin-rich brown eyes.
The cool thing is that when the pupil changes size, the pigments in the iris compress or spread apart. This changes the eye color to a degree. The pupil can change size with certain emotions, thus changing the iris color dispersion and the eye color.
Your children inherit their eye colors from you and your partner. It's a combination of mom and dad's eye colors – generally, the color is determined by this mix and whether the genes are dominant or recessive. Every child carries two copies of every gene – one comes from mom, and the other comes from dad.
If both the parents have brown eyes, then there is generally a 25% chance for their child to have blue eyes. Because both the brown-eyed parents have a recessive blue-eye gene and can pass it to the next generation. However, since eye color is polygenic, several other genes exert their effects as well.
Around 1 in 4 people in the U.S. have blue eyes. Brown, which is the most common eye color in the world. Green, which is the least common eye color. Only 9% of people in the United States have green eyes.
Hazel eyes are usually a combination of brown, green, and gold, although they can appear to look like any of those colors at a distance. Hazel often means that the inside of an individual's iris is a different color than the outer rim, giving their eyes a bright, vibrant, multicolored appearance.
Yorkshire-based iridologist John Andrews said: "Alas, it is a misconception that eyes change color with diet.
Blue eyes also represent innocence and carefree. Brown eyes are a more mature eye color and represent stability, security and strength.
Purple eyes are also commonly referred to as “violet eyes,” as they are typically a light shade. For most people, this striking eye color can only be achieved with the help of colored contacts. But the fact is that a small (albeit very small) percentage of people are indeed born with purple eyes.
Conversely, brown eyes are the most common color yet the least attractive to the survey's respondents. According to World Atlas, approximately 79% of the world's population has brown eyes, making it the most common eye color in the world.
Lighter-colored eyes have less pigment to protect against sun damage and UV radiation compared to darker-colored eyes. This means that people with green, hazel, or blue eyes are more sensitive to light and more susceptible to UV damage.
Almond eyes are considered the most ideal eye shape because you can pretty much pull off any eyeshadow look. And believe me, this is a huge plus! Almond eyes have an oval shape with a slightly upturned outer corner.
Babies often do not have much pigment in their irises when they are born. This is why their eyes can look very blue. More pigment accumulates in the iris over the first few months of a child's life and blue eyes can become less blue or even turn completely brown.
Permanent changes to eye color can be achieved through iris implant surgery, corneal pigmentation, and laser eye color change. Iris Implant Surgery is a procedure that inserts a prosthetic iris into the eye. It was originally developed to treat iris defects such as albinism and aniridia.
A blue/white/gray arc or ring around the irises of your eyes is called arcus senilis if you're 50 to 60 years old or older. It's seen as a normal part of aging. If you're younger and you have them, you should see your provider about possible underlying health conditions.