Hazeleyes, arguably one of the most mysterious eye colors, are as unique as they are beautiful.
So what’s the science behind this one-of-a-kind eye color?
Is having hazel eyes common or is it more of a genetic rarity?
Read on to learn the truth about hazel eyes.
What color are hazel eyes exactly?
Specifically, the hazel pattern begins with a ring of color around the pupil, usually brown.
But this unique variation is how it works for our hazel-eyed brethren.
The more melanin you have in your iris and your skin, the darker both will appear.
That explains a lot.
So where there’s brown, there’s a lot of melanin.
Where there’s yellow and green, there’s less melanin and light being scattered in combination.
So hazel-eyed folks, celebrate yourselves!
You’re a rare bird, indeed.
Truly those are one in a million.
Of course, science has a reason for that.
Additionally, the color shift is also dependent on how much melanin is in the iris.
Boom, mystery solved!
It followed, then, that brown eye color is dominant over all other eye colors, including hazel.
But as it turns out, that model was way over-simplified in some ways and totally wrong in others.
That’s why it’s possible for blue-eyed parents to have children with hazel eyes.
Do people with hazel eyes handle pain better than others?
For example, brown-eyed and hazel-eyed ladies are more sensitive to pain than lighter-eyed folks.
Who knew eye color could be linked to something like that?
But they are indeed connected, according to an article published inThe Journal of Pain.
The aim was to study postpartum and antepartum pain, sleep, coping behavior, and mood.
As it turns out, women with lighter eyes had an easier time giving birth than their darker-eyed counterparts.
Additionally, they were less prone to anxiety and depression all thanks to having less melanin in their irises.
How can hazel eyes affect alcohol tolerance?
Just as folks with hazel eyes are more sensitive to pain, they are also more sensitive to alcohol.
Though it’s a little more complicated than it sounds.
What they found was that in both samples, light-eyed folksdrankmuch more alcohol than hazel-eyed and brown-eyed people.
That also means that hazel-eyed folks are less prone to developinga physical alcohol dependence.
Nothing wrong with being a little more efficient!
Neither did brown-eyed and hazel-eyed men and women.
Um, what exactly is going on here?
Are hazel eyes different from eyes with heterochromia?
The pattern is similar to that of hazel eyes, but it’s not the same thing.
There are other forms of heterochromia as well.
As for other folks,Gilmore Girlsstar Jared Padalecki has some arrestinghazel eyes, and he’s white.
OG badass Danny Trejo also has an especially lovelyhazel-green eye color, and he’s a proud Latino.
South Korean actressLee Sung Kyungis also in thehazel club, proving that hazel eyes are truly universal.
But that’s not the case for everyone.
At that time, a baby’s eyes can turn green, hazel, gray, or brown.
That’s just one more mystery that melanin brings to the genetic table.
Are people with hazel eyes more at risk for cancer than brown-eyed people?
It’s just the luck of the draw.
“This is likely due to the sparsity of light-absorbing pigment in the eye.
The more pigment you have, the less light gets through the iris.”
