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.
More than 50% of people worldwide have brown eyes, making brown the most common eye color. Learn more fun facts about eye colors and what they may signal about your health. The colored part of your eye is called the iris.
People with dark brown eyes have more melanin on the back layer of their iris, and eyes with very little (or no) melanin on the front layer of the iris appear more blue, green, or even hazel. Usually eye color is determined by genetic traits, which are handed down from your parents.
Of all eye colors, brown seems to be the only one that could be called “advantageous” from a survival perspective. While more research is needed, darker irises are linked to a number of health benefits, including these: Reduced risk of macular degeneration. Lower melanoma risk.
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.
Do you have brown eyes? Well, consider yourself lucky – or maybe unlucky – because you have the most common eye color in the world! Being one of the popular kids isn't the only benefit of brown eyes, some studies have actually suggested that men with brown eyes seem more trustworthy than their blue eyed counterparts.
Are brown eyes warm or cool? Dark brown eyes are cool-toned, and light brown eyes are warm-toned. Hazel eyes with golden flecks look warmer, while hazel eyes with gray or green flecks look cool-toned.
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.
Eye color was traditionally described as a single gene trait, with brown eyes being dominant over blue eyes.
Brown eyes are common in Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Oceania, Africa and the Americas. Light or medium-pigmented brown eyes can also be commonly found in South Europe, among the Americas, and parts of Central Asia, West Asia and South Asia.
“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.
Eye color is directly related to the amount of melanin in the front layers of the iris. People with brown eyes have a large amount of melanin in the iris, while people with blue eyes have much less of this pigment. A particular region on chromosome 15 plays a major role in eye color.
Of those four, green is the rarest. It shows up in about 9% of Americans but only 2% of the world's population. Hazel/amber is the next rarest of these.
Despite songs about blue eyes and brown-eyed girls, neither were found to be the most attractive eye color. Instead, gray eyes topped the chart with an average rating of 7.4, followed by blue and green eyes each scoring an average of 7.3.
One of the study's main findings was that gray eyes are both the rarest and the statistically most attractive eye color, with hazel and green following closely behind. Conversely, brown eyes are the most common color yet the least attractive to the survey's respondents.
Blue eyes are crowned the sexiest among men and women
According to our research, blue is the sexiest eye colour, as the majority of the world's sexiest people, both male and female, have blue eyes.
Hazel eyes have also been voted as one of the most attractive eye colours and can, therefore, be argued to have the best of both worlds, health and beauty. Green eyes are incredibly rare, which may be the reason as to why some believe this to be the most attractive eye colour.
The beauty of the color brown is that it's a neutral color, so it pairs beautifully with every color! If you really want to make your brown eyes pop, however, stick with vibrant hues like purple, green, and gold that will provide some much-needed contrast to your dazzling deep amber eyes.
Benefits of Brown Eyes
People with brown eyes tend to be at lower risk for eye cancer, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. An additional benefit of brown eyes is that the higher melanin levels may protect the brain's nerves from damage due to noise.
If you have a darker eye color, your eyes can often withstand high glare lights better than light colored eyes can. This is thanks to the greater amount of pigment and melanin in your iris. You could potentially be better at driving at night because your eyes allow for less light to reflect and cause glare.
The allele for brown eyes is the most dominant allele and is always dominant over the other two alleles and the allele for green eyes is always dominant over the allele for blue eyes, which is always recessive.
People with brown eyes are said to be independent, determined and self-confident. Yet, you never fail to remain humble. When people look at you, they get a sense of security and stability – you are known to be trustworthy. While you may want to act tough, your brown eyes portray how kind and sensitive you truly are.
Gazing into people's eyes can offer insight into whether they can be trusted, and according to new research, this perception may have something to do with eye color. A study published in the journal PLOS ONE found that brown-eyed people are believed to be more trustworthy than blue-eyed people.