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.
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.
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.
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.
And what your baby eats or does, and how much you expose them to light, doesn't matter either. It's all up to genetics and nothing more. That said, if your baby was born with brown eyes, it means they already have the amount of melanin assigned by their genetic code, so their eye color won't change.
Just a little more melanin and his eyes will be green or hazel. Brown eyes, which are the most common, are the result of very active melanocytes secreting lots of melanin. Brown eyes are likely to remain brown throughout life.
In fact, your little one's eyes will likely change color by the end of the first year. They may become darker, greener, hazel, or turn completely brown.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Brown eyes are more resistant to problems because they have more melanin. It also helps to repair DNA damage and to keep the eyes moist. People with brown eyes are also less likely to develop certain types of eye diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration.
Hair Colors To Consider
Try dirty blonde, caramel or honey highlights on dark brown hair. The contrast will bring out your brown eyes and highlight the golden flecks in them.
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.
Generally speaking, patients with lighter color irises, such as blue or gray, experience more light sensitivity than someone with brown eyes. The density of pigment in light eyes is less than that of a darker colored iris. When light hits a dark-colored iris, the higher density in pigment blocks the light rays.
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.
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.
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.
Melanin production can be activated through solar exposure, meaning that a prolonged time exposure to the sun could make your eyes darker. Certain emotions can change the size of your pupil and the iris color.
There are two types of melanin—eumelanin, which is dark brown-black, and pheomelanin (also called lipochrome), which is a lighter reddish-yellow. Most sources say that amber eyes comprise a higher level of pheomelanin, giving them their golden glow.
More information about Hazel Eyes
Anyone can be born with hazel eyes, but it's most common in people of Brazilian, Middle Eastern, North African, or Spanish descent. When eyes are hazel, they are brown mixed with amber and green. In some cases, there are shades of gray, blue, and gold within the iris too.
Much like gray eyes, hazel eyes may appear to “change color” from green to light brown to gold. Individuals whose eyes appear to be one color closest to the pupil, another color a little farther our, and another color around the edge of the iris are likely to have hazel eyes.
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.
We learn that brown eye color is dominant, while blue eyes are recessive. By this logic, two blue-eyed parents couldn't have a child with light brown eyes, much less a child with hazel or even the more mysterious grey eyes. What is this? Turns out, many factors determine human eye color, including mutation and light.
It's estimated that only about 5% of the population has hazel eyes. Brown is the most common eye color, and roughly 55% to 80% of the population has brown eyes.