# \*what\* colour, exactly, are hazel eyes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 11, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069 "2002-04-11T18:12:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/1 "2002-04-11T18:12:41Z")
i’ve never been able to define my own eye colour (which garners many an odd look from others). there’s a ring around the pupil that’s a bright rusty orange (with a slight tinge of brown), and the rest of the iris changes from greyish to blueish to greenish (although whatever colour it is always has a greyish hue to it). so i thought, “well, why don’t you see what hazel eyes are?” and durned if i can find an actual answer! i get results that say anything from “light golden brown” to “greeny blue”. so is hazel a catchall phrase for “i don’t know _what_ colour it is!” ? i know people used to think that eyes were only blue or brown, and no inbetween (at least if my old “guess who” board game is to be trusted :p), but now it seems to be “brown, blue, green, grey, black, and hazel”. but hazel apparently is a catchall phrase (or people are using it incorrectly). so, my friends, _what_ exactly is the colour of hazel eyes? ---
**Author:** ![Du\_Hast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f0a364/32.png) [@Du\_Hast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Du_Hast)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/2 "2002-04-11T18:15:04Z")
Hazel. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/3 "2002-04-11T18:20:37Z")
Well, simple answer, as Du\_Hast managed to put so concisely and elegantly, is that they’re hazel. It’s a color. Check the crayon box! 🙂 But the reason you might be having trouble pinning it down, though, is that we people with hazel eyes are a bit… special. Some might even say “freaky”. Our exact eye color tends to shift a bit depending on what we’re wearing. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/4 "2002-04-11T18:23:41Z")
Erm, since this is General Questions, I suppose I should say, “our eye color APPEARS to shift”. As far as I know, they don’t literally change. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/5 "2002-04-11T18:42:35Z")
well i _know_ hazel is a colour (you’re talking to the person who was asked what was the colour of the car that needed an oil change, and answered, “it’s burnt sienna” :D). but everyone i’ve ever talked to, which includes people who do or don’t think they have hazel eyes, seem to think that hazel \* eye colour \* is completely different from hazel \* anything else colour \*, which is why i’m asking. i mean, my eyes aren’t a light yellowy brown, but a few people have said to me, “well, i guess your eyes are hazel.” ---
**Author:** ![leechbabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7cd45c/32.png) [@leechbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leechbabe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/6 "2002-04-11T18:51:40Z")
Ditto what **Anamorphic** said. I’ve got hazel coloured eyes as do my mum and my SO. Our eye colour is very much a reflection of what we are wearing, green and blue seem to work especially well. I suppose to find out the true colour we could all get naked and check it out but its 4.30 in the AM here and I’m just not up to seeing my mum naked at this blessed hour. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/7 "2002-04-11T19:02:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by leechbabe \* > \*\*Ditto what **Anamorphic** said. I’ve got hazel coloured eyes as do my mum and my SO. Our eye colour is very much a reflection of what we are wearing, green and blue seem to work especially well. > > I suppose to find out the true colour we could all get naked and check it out but its 4.30 in the AM here and I’m just not up to seeing my mum naked at this blessed hour. \*\* Sounds like a party to me! Except for the whole mum thing, yeah. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/8 "2002-04-11T19:28:37Z")
I was under the impression that hazel eyes are eyes that are browny-green, a touch yellowish sometimes. **Definitely** not blue/green/gray. My eyes are quite similar to yours, they are blue/green/grey with a yellow ring in my irises. No one has ever told me, nor hae I ever thought my eyes are hazel. They are “light”. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/9 "2002-04-11T19:30:14Z")
Sorry, afterthought: On my driver’s license, eye colour is listed as “pers”: the french word for the eyecolour that is “blue-green”. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/10 "2002-04-11T19:43:18Z")
According to Merriam-Webster, as a color hazel is “a light brown to strong yellowish brown.” My brother has “hazel” eyes, and that’s what they are: a light brown. If people are using it to describe other eye colors, then they are misusing it. However, if people have light brown eyes it means they have less melanin in the iris than those with dark brown eyes. It is probably more common for them to show flecks or areas of other colors such as green, gray, or blue if the pigment is distributed unevenly. Therefore it may be typical for people whose base color is light brown to show multicolored eyes, or appear to have a variable eye color. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/11 "2002-04-11T19:56:50Z")
The problem is that hazel, in the context of eye color, isn’t a single shade but some type of blend. Normally it’s understood to have some sort of mossy-green character, associated with an amber hued lipid sitting atop a the normal pigment of the eye. If brown eyes (rich in melanin) are at one end of the spectrum and blue (melanin poor) at the other, hazel would sit somewhere near the middle. This is not to say eye color inheritance follows a simple Mendelian pattern, as the shades that differ distinctly from brown or blue would seem to indicate. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/12 "2002-04-11T20:06:26Z")
As for the blue question, the [hazel nut](http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/wappo/pages/plants3.html) that the color is supposed to be reminiscent of, is amber-greenish. No blue at all. ---
**Author:** ![Inky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7feea3/32.png) [@Inky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inky_1)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/13 "2002-04-11T20:59:13Z")
Hang on. My eyes have always been defined as “hazel” – even says so on my drivers licence, a legally recognized document! They are green with a little brown surrounding the pupil. I thought hazel meant two-toned eyes? No? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2002, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/14 "2002-04-11T22:05:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Inky- \* > \*\*I thought hazel meant two-toned eyes? No? \*\* The dictionary doesn’t think so. [Neither does Cecil](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a971205.html). He says hazel is medium brown. Some [info](http://www.seps.org/cvoracle/faq/eyecolor.html) on how eye color is determined: > [@](#): > > At one time scientists thought that a single gene pair, in a dominant/recessive inheritance pattern, controlled human eye color. The allele for brown eyes was considered dominant over the allele for blue eyes. The genetic basis for eye color is actually far more complex. At the present, three gene pairs controlling human eye color are known. Two of the gene pairs occur on chromosome pair 15 and one occurs on chromosome pair 19. The bey 2 gene, on chromosome 15, has a brown and a blue allele. A second gene, located on chromosome 19 (the gey gene) has a blue and a green allele. A third gene, bey 1, located on chromosome 15, is a central brown eye color gene. > > Geneticists have designed a model using the bey 2 and gey gene pairs that explains the inheritance of blue, green and brown eyes. In this model the bey 2 gene has a brown and a blue allele. The brown allele is always dominant over the blue allele so even if a person is heterozygous (one brown and one blue allele) for the bey 2 gene on chromosome 15 the brown allele will be expressed. The gey gene also has two alleles, one green and one blue. The green allele is dominant to the blue allele on either chromosome but is recessive to the brown allele on chromosome 15. This means that there is a dominance order among the two gene pairs. If a person has a brown allele on chromosome 15 and all other alleles are blue or green the person will have brown eyes. If there is a green allele on chromosome 19 and the rest of the alleles are blue, eye color will be green. Blue eyes will occur only if all four alleles are for blue eyes. This model explains the inheritance of blue, brown and green eyes but cannot account for gray, hazel or multiple shades of brown, blue, green and gray eyes. It cannot explain how two blue-eyed parents can produce a brown-eyed child or how eye color can change over time. This suggests that there are other genes, yet to be discovered, that determine eye color or that modify the expression of the known eye color genes. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/15 "2002-04-12T00:54:04Z")
My first driver’s license said “hazel”. That’s what people told me I had. Now my license says “green” (\*actually GRN) because that’s what I finally decided they were, mostly. I can’t even figure out whether my eyes changed color, or people just didn’t know. I too have a green/light-brown(tan?) outer/inner color scheme, and I think the varying amounts and intensities of combinations make “eye color” somewhat subjective. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/16 "2002-04-12T01:07:49Z")
so what would anyone say my eye colour is, then? ring of rust around the pupil with the rest being grey, green, or blue (changes shades quite often, but always grey-tinted). i’d _like_ to have a proper eye colour listed on my driver’s license. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/17 "2002-04-12T01:29:47Z")
Go with “pers”. Who cares if it’s foreign. Or you could do as I do, and inform anyone who asks that they’re blue/green/gray and let 'em decide for themselves. (Wow, your eyes really do sound quite identical to mine. I’ve never met anyone else who has different coloured rings in their eyes, too.) ---
**Author:** ![tsunamisurfer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@tsunamisurfer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tsunamisurfer)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/18 "2002-04-12T03:56:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Waverly \* > \*\*The problem is that hazel, in the context of eye color, isn’t a single shade but some type of blend. Normally it’s understood to have some sort of mossy-green character, associated with an amber hued lipid sitting atop a the normal pigment of the eye. > > \*\* This is a circular definition in two ways. First, moss comes in many hues. Second, the term “hazel” is commonly misused–and has been for years. Thus, your associating the phrase “normally understood” with this vague term answers nothing. (Though I was initially impressed!) Hazel is not a variant of blue or blue-green or medium green. Instead, it’s a yellowish brown, though there’s no commonly understood term to really define it. Most people use the term “hazel” as a catch all. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/19 "2002-04-12T04:30:13Z")
My eyes have been described as hazel (_whatever_ that means). I have a very narrow dark blue-gray ring next to the whites, a broader (but still narrow) medium turquoise ring inside that, then a lot of strips of yellow-brown and green (with some dark brown) in a radiating pattern around the lens, while immediately next to the lens is an irregularly shaped circle of medium brown. In addition to hazel, my eyes have been described (depending on my age, the observer, the weather, the color of my clothes, the lighting of the room, and apparently what I had for breakfast) as blue, green, gray, and indecipherable. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069/20 "2002-04-12T04:35:13Z")
My eyes have been described as hazel (_whatever_ that means). I have a very narrow dark blue-gray ring next to the whites, a broader (but still narrow) medium turquoise ring inside that, then a lot of strips of yellow-brown and green (with some dark brown) in a radiating pattern around the lens, while immediately next to the lens is an irregularly shaped circle of medium brown. In addition to hazel, my eyes have been described (depending on my age, the observer, the weather, the color of my clothes, the lighting of the room, and apparently what I had for breakfast) as blue, green, gray, and indecipherable. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-colour-exactly-are-hazel-eyes/103069.md?page=2)