# Eye-color Genetics Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eye-color-genetics-question/589439>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 18, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eye-color-genetics-question/589439 "2011-07-18T13:23:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eye-color-genetics-question/589439/21 "2011-07-20T23:55:17Z")

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> [@Apollyon](#):
>
> I think it’s interesting to be able to have a beard colour that’s different from the hair right next to it.

That is surprisingly common. We men have to face the fact that when we grow a beard, there’s a good chance it’ll be a different color than the stuff on top, or it will go gray sooner.

I have dark hair, but get lots of red in my beard. Or I did the last time I grew one-- probably mostly gray now!

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**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eye-color-genetics-question/589439/22 "2011-07-21T01:20:42Z")

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> [@Disenchantment](#):
>
> You are right. Although, two blue-eyed parents _can_ produce a brown-eyed child it is very rare.

I wonder if this happens because the parents in question _look_ like they have blue eyes but maybe don’t really.

Take me, for example. Both my parents have blue eyes, so common wisdom says that I must as well. When I was a little kid, my eyes did look blue, a mid-range blue, which wasn’t quite the same shade of blue as my brother or parents’ eyes. When I hit my mid-teens, my eyes began to change color, and now range from gray to green, with the “default” being a light blue-green (with a dark blue outer ring and flecks of brown close to the pupil.)

When you look farther back than my parents, blue eyes only pop up 50% of the time: one set of grandparents was blue+hazel and the other blue+brown and there is even more brown when you go back farther. It seems possible that my eyes are actually a variety of hazel, even though they generally make people assume that they’re a shade of blue, or occasionally green.

If I had a child with a man whose eyes are like my own, it wouldn’t be too shocking if the child had a shade of brown.

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**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eye-color-genetics-question/589439/23 "2011-07-21T03:13:25Z")

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> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> I have dark hair, but get lots of red in my beard. Or I did the last time I grew one-- probably mostly gray now!

Yeah… mine’s the same but now my beard is still mostly red – but with white patches – and all the hair on my head is gray. (It went gray after having a child… I’m sure there is a cause-effect thing going on). 🙂

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