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.
According to the World Atlas, only about 5% of the world's population has hazel eyes, making them extremely uncommon. Meanwhile, blue eyes account for about 8 to 10% of the world population whereas brown eyes dominate at a whopping 79%. However, this doesn't make hazel the rarest eye color.
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.
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 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 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 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.
Anyone can be born with hazel eyes, but it's most common in people of Brazilian, Middle Eastern, North African, or Spanish descent.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gray and Hazel eyes are rarer to see, however. Melanin is responsible for the coloured part of the eye, which is known as the iris. Melanin is also the same pigment which gives us our skin colouring. The amount of melanin determines how dark or light your eyes are.
Hazel eyes are used to describe the eye color of mostly white populations where there is a mix of people with blue, green, and brown eyes, upping the genetic chance for hazel eyes to occur.
Hazel eyes are fairly rare, and only about 5% of the population has them. Can eyes change color? It's very unusual for eyes to change color in adulthood, but if you really want hazel eyes, you can wear colored contacts to temporarily change how your eyes look.
This 'camouflaging' effect is also emphasized whenever the pupils contract or dilate, as any small change in pupil size will also affect how light reflects in the eye (and the way we perceive it). This may actually be the reason why people say hazel eyes change color depending on one's mood!
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:
Hazel eyes are most common in North Africa, the Middle East, Brazil, and Spain.
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.
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. Brown eyes may also have some green in them. However, it is not nearly as noticeable as it is when someone has hazel eyes.
Your eye color fully matures in infancy. From this early age, you'll have naturally brown, blue, hazel, green, or gray eyes for the rest of your life. Some people wear colored contacts to enhance the intensity or change the color of their eyes.
People with hazel eyes, like actress Rashida Jones, can complement their natural looks by choosing glasses in earthy colors, like muted tans, browns, and greens. Earth tones complement and draw attention to hazel eyes. One of the most unique elements of hazel eye colors is the presence of gold undertones in the irises.
There are plenty of blue-eyed Asians. This probably happens when the traditional blue-eyed allele comes into a family from a (possibly very distant) European ancestor. Blue eyes then resurface in a child generations later if they inherit the allele from both parents.