"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.
Your eyes cannot completely change color like from blue to green or brown to blue when your mood changes. Instead, the size of your pupil changes when your mood changes, and in turn, the hue of your eyes change.
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.
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.
Some people are even born with the eye color that they will have their entire life. For a small percentage of people, their eyes actually can change color. With age, eyes can naturally become either darker or lighter.
Unfortunately, unless you were born with blue eyes, there aren't any ways to naturally change your eye color.
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 pigment slow degrades over time, resulting in less color.
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.
Changes in eye color are rare. Sometimes, the color of your eye may appear to change when your pupils dilate. The colors in your environment, including lighting and your clothes, can give the illusion of eye color change.
Gray: The Rarest Eye Color
New classifications have determined that gray is its own standard color.1 (It was previously, and incorrectly, lumped in with blue.) With this change, gray now tops the list as the rarest eye color.
Fuchs Heterochromic Iridocyclitis (FHI) - This is an inflammation that occurs in some parts of the front of the eye, including the iris. One symptom of this is a loss of iris pigmentation, which may change your eye color.
Our eye colors don't typically change. However, clothing and makeup options bring out different shades of our eyes and make them pop. For example, blue eyes may appear bluer when people wear warm-toned eye makeup—and green eyes may appear more vibrant when wearing a green shirt.
In most people, the answer is no. Eye color fully matures in infancy and remains the same for life.
Hazel eyes are generally a combination of brown, green, and gold. Sometimes, blue or even amber can make an appearance in hazel eyes, too. Often, hazel-colored eyes have a different hue around the pupil than on the eye's outer rim. This gradient of color can give hazel eyes a “sunburst” effect.
Brown and blue eyes are two of the most common eye colors in the world, but when it comes to determining the least common eye colors, the numbers aren't clear-cut.
Green irises (the rarest eye color) have less melanin than brown eyes but more than blue eyes, for instance. “Brown is on one end, blue on the other, and hazel and green are in between,” Dr. Patel says. This also means that brown is dominant and blue is the least dominant, also known as recessive.
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.
Green, yellow, orange, and red hues also show off the beauty of brown eyes. And bold colors that pop are a safe bet. Green and purple brighten up light brown eyes. Light eyelids are perfect for making your eyes shine.
This is because they are able to show a wide range of emotions, from happiness to sadness. People are attracted to brown-eyed people because of this exact expressiveness. Additionally, brown eyes exude mystery, which intrigues people.
Those with darker colored eyes experience less visual discomfort in bright, sunny conditions. Also, darker irises reflect less light within the eye, reducing susceptibility to glare and improving contrast discernment—so people with darker eyes may have better vision in high-glare situations, such as driving at night.
“The fundamental principle is that under every brown eye is a blue eye,” Dr Gregg Homer told CNN, adding that there is no actual blue pigmentation in the eye. “The only difference between a brown eye and a blue eye is this very thin layer of pigment on the surface.
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.
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.