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. Blue is the second most common and brown tops the list with 45% of the U.S. population and possibly almost 80% worldwide.
Why are hazel eyes so rare? Only about 5 percent of the population worldwide has the hazel eye genetic mutation. After brown eyes, they have the most melanin. . The combination of having less melanin (as with green eyes) and a lot of melanin (like brown eyes) make this eye color unique.
Hazel Eyes
Those with more brown are said to be more approachable. However, compared to other eye colours, hazel eyes are viewed as more special as they change colour depending on your mood. You are strong, sensitive and secretive, and possess immense physical strength.
Anyone can be born with hazel eyes, but it's most common in people of Brazilian, Middle Eastern, North African, or Spanish descent.
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.
Hazel eyes play a delicate game of limbo between brown and blue, having less pigment than brown and more than blue. Eye color can change through the years as amount of pigment in the eyes differs based on genetics.
Hazel eyes have flecks of gold, green, and brown, so it's best to complement them with warm-toned blondes, browns, and reds if you really want your eye color to stand out. If your hazel eyes have a lot of green in them, rich red shades like auburn and copper will work best for you.
A blue and a green-eyed parent will have all hazel-eyed kids. This is one of the reasons I like the modifier gene explanation so much. It can help explain how green and blue-eyed parents might have hazel-eyed kids.
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.
Advantages of Hazel Eyes
The levels of melanin in hazel eyes may offer some benefits to the brain. People with hazel eyes appear to be less likely to have nerve damage from environmental noise than people with blue eyes. There are some beliefs that people with hazel eyes tend to have a more positive outlook on things.
As much as we'd like to believe that hazel eyes can change color like a mood ring does, most of the time it's really just a trick of the light! What you're seeing is actually Rayleigh scattering — the same phenomenon that makes the sky appear blue.
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.
Hazel eyes are due to a combination of Rayleigh scattering and a moderate amount of melanin in the iris' anterior border layer. Hazel eyes often appear to shift in color from a brown to a green. Although hazel mostly consists of brown and green, the dominant color in the eye can either be brown/gold or green.
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.
Hazel Eyes
Some say they're “hazelnut” and others call them “golden” or even “brownish green.” As with blue and green eyes, hazel eyes may appear to shift colors depending on the lighting, and even mood! People with hazel eyes are thought to be kind-hearted, curious and spontaneous.
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.
Hazel eyes are a mix of colors and can seem warm when a person has cool undertones. This video is from a VIP Live Color Party where I dive deep into analyzing different hazel eyes. It's fun to see how two similar eyes can have different sets of colors and characteristics.
“Purples, pinks, burgundies, and cranberries bring out the green tones in hazel eyes,” says Nelson.
There's a little genetic tweak that makes the combination of red hair and blue eyes the rarest of them all. The same Nature study mentioned above found that another gene variant, HERC2, interacts with both the MC1R gene and the OCA2 gene—and it can shut off the redhead gene while expressing blue eyes and blonde hair.
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.
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. Turns out, many factors determine human eye color, including mutation and light. What is this?
Can hazel eyes lighten? No, eye color does not lighten naturally. It can darken with age, however. The hazel color comes from tiny clumps of transparent brown or gold pigment in the outer layer of the eye right above the blue colored iris (everyone has blue irises under this layer).