My eyes change color, from gray-blue to blue-green. The changes occur because of mood/illness/lack of sleep, or just because of what I’m wearing.
My question is, though, I never noticed this until I was a teen, so is it more likely that my eye ** started** changing color then or did it somehow escape everyone’s notice until then? I know of at least 2 other people who’ve said this about their eyes too: no one seemed to notice their eyes changed color until their teens. I suppose it’s possible that no one noticed mine changing, though in childhood pictures my eyes were always dark blue. I didn’t notice that they changed until we had to do a stupid Tory Vs Patriot debate in high school, and our teacher assigned up our roles by eye-color. Some girls argued with me that my eyes were green. I couldn’t believe it when I looked in the mirror, and they were right.
Is it possible that my friends and I weren’t totally oblivious to the change in our own eye color, and perhaps that something about puberty triggered the “new” ability of our eyes to change color?
I read that column. That column is talking about permenent changes, as the man who wrote was concerned that his formerly Hazel eyes are now blue(isn’t there a song?). I, on the other hand, am talking about temporary color changes. Thanks, though.
I’ve noticed the same thing (I’m 18 and just started noticing it a couple years ago). And you know my eyes are the same color range as yours! I have a couple friends with the same deal and they all are also blue-grey to blue-green… brown eyed people don’t seem to be this way?
As far as changign with what you’re wearing, I can’t say for certain but I’d say that it’s just the color of the shirt either reflecting in your eyes or making the contrast with your eyes stand out, and it might be just a trick of the light sort of thing.
I think the song is something about ‘don’t it turn my brown eyes blue’
I’ve noticed that the brown patches in my (green) eyes change size, making them look more or less hazel at times. Perhaps that’s what’s happening to you and others.
Yeah, I’m hazel officially but sometimes in the right light I swear that they’re green.
I have to wonder from these posts if this doesn’t have something to do with the “fatty pigments” that Cecil was talking about considering that everyone so far has mentioned the color green (or hazel, which is brownish green)
Grey eyes seem to be constantly subject to change. I suspect the relative lack of color means any reflection of ambient color is more pronounced. My girlfriend has them and her eyes turn the most interesting turquoise when she is in my sea green bedroom.
I think blue eyes also have significant variation but it isn’t as noticible because it is more a change in intensity than tone. With grey, green or hazel eyes the variation in blue makes a more noticible tonal change. As the blue comes from a reflection off the back of the eye the blue component will vary with the lighting. Perhaps changes in blood vessels also effect the color and would explain shifts due to other factors you mentioned.
This quoted phrase contains the key. Parts of the iris (the colored part of our eye) are one color, parts are another. When the light levels around you change, the iris changes shape to enlarge the** pupil **of the eye. (This allows greater or lesser amounts of light to reach the cornea, enabling you to see in darker or brighter environments.) The size/shape change exposes greater or lesser areas of your iris , and therefore exposes the differently pigmented areas.
Hence the color change.
Don’t fall all over yourselves thanking me.
Well yes, but the question is did the change start during puberty, not why they change… Since no blue-eyed people have stated that theirs changed before their teens, I think it’s safe to say no one noticed changes before because there weren’t any.
Back to that column of Cecil’s though, the man who wrote said that “hazel” is the eye color on his birth certificate. Does that mean all my science teachers between 6th and 12th grade lied to me when they taught me that all babies are born blue-eyed? The teachers never said how long they stayed blue(days or weeks) but surely long enough so one’s birth certificate had been long filled out. Does a birth certificate even mention hair and eye color? Mine isn’t a normal one(unique format used only by the hospital I was born in) , so I can’t really use it as a basis for comparasion.