Do people's eyes really change color or does it just SEEM that way?

They do change color over time. Like paintings that get exposed to too much light, the color fades a bit with age.

I've been told I have either hazel green yet sometimes they're hazel blue. Clearly part of it is light reflection (source of the light and environmental colors that get reflected off the eyes)

But there is more to eye color change then simple light reflection.



http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=30

Sounds like we have the same color eyes! I've noticed mine look more gray when I'm alert and concentrating, but brighter and more blue or green when I'm tired. They get really colorful when I cry or when my allergies make them watery.

They only change over time? You mean like in years?

So you dont think peoples eyes can change day to day or like hour to hour or something? I dont agree.

Oh! Nice avatar, What is it?

YAY!

We have the same eye color because we're the AWESOMEST!

My eyes are bluer when I've been crying or when Im tired.
When Im calm, they're gray or grayish-blue.
I dont know exactly when they're greenish. Random times I guess?

I'm not saying I don't believe in eyes that change in day to day scale. I just haven't seen it or noticed it happen. I just writing about what I know. I wonder if dietary and hormonal changes in a person can effect the eye coloring on a day to day scale. I don't believe in eye color changes as if the eye us some kind of mood ring where the eye color would change by the minute and second.


It's te
My avatar is the ghost dog named Zero from the Henry Selick claymation film, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).

Oh! Well yeah, eyes arent mood rings but they are the windows to your soul, so that's gotta count for something right? My eye color definitely changes. Do you have dark eyes? I dont think dark eyes change as much as lighter eyes do because there's more pigment right?


Oh cool! Never seen the movie. I think I've heard of it though. I like the avatar.

Eyes that change color are usually called hazel as a default.

Yup. That's what it says on my driver's licence. Hazel. I have no idea what that means.

Means they couldn't make up their minds.

When I was younger, my eyes were a very light green. Sometimes they appeared brighter than other times. I don't think that counts as a color change.

Now that I'm old and feeble, my eyes are still green, but definitely darker.

BTW, my mother's eyes were hazel. They always looked the same to me. My father's eyes were light gray. Also didn't detect any changes.

My daughter's eyes change according to what she's wearing/ what colors are around her. If she's wearing green, she has bright-green eyes -- doesn't seem like they could be any other color. But if she's wearing gray, they're gray. They're sometimes more hazel. Sometimes a tiny bit blue.

If I look at them closely, they actually have a bunch of different colors within the iris -- they're not monochrome, at all. There isn't any actual green pigment but there are strands of bluish and goldish that next to each other, with the right background, look green.

Babies' eyes definitely change -- she was born with eyes that were a different color than they are now. But I don't think the intrinsic color changes on a short timescale, just how the color appears in context.

Eye color changes slowly over time, especially from birth to age 4 or 5, but it doesn't change in the short term or "over night".

However, remember that the color we see on any object (not just eyes) is not just an inherent property of that particular object or surface but also the ambient light surrounding the object.

So if a room is filled mostly with RED light, or mostly with BLUE light, people's eyes will reflect the light available to them correspondingly. Likewise, eye color in full sunlight versus interior incandescent or fluorescent light will appear different. And I suspect that the basic colors someone is wearing will affect eye color for the same reason (more of one color available for reflection), in addition to the way people interpret colors based on the other colors around them (a perspective effect related to the way our brains interpret signals, visual and otherwise).

My eyes are a chocolate brown and they've always been so. But my daughter's eyes and hair have darkened since she was a child.

Oooo. So that kinda explains how clothes and stuff can make your eyes a different color. Cool.

Yes. The color appears different because the environment (light) around them is different. This is especially true of lighter colored eyes which reflect more light. And it's also very pronounced in iridescent surfaces like birds feathers and butterfly wings.

For more information on iridescence see the following link: http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/15A.html

The other thing that can cause variation in eye color is the size of the pupil. Some eyes have more of one color near the center than at the edges, so as the pupil changes size the ratio of colors exposed changes.

Cool! Thats intresting! Thanks!

Haha me too! i wish i was able to keep them really blue all the time without having to cry or be really tired lol

F.Y.I., I don't know you people, but I'm going to answer anyways.
It can be from emotions or what your wearing. It can be from lighting sometimes, but either way, they do change. My eyes went from light blue, and I mean really really light blue, to a darker blue. Sometimes they would change back but currently they are a drab olive green. Basically they are the darkest green colored eyes you could ever have.