Most people walk around quite confidently identifying eye colours… until you ask them to distinguish green from hazel. Suddenly the room goes quiet, someone suggests “a bit of both,” and your aunt insists her eyes change colour depending on her mood — which is adorable, but not physiologically accurate.

As someone who spends an obscene amount of time photographing eyes (yes, voluntarily), I can tell you: green and hazel eyes are not the same, they’re not interchangeable, and they’re absolutely fascinating once you understand what’s actually going on inside the iris.

This article breaks down everything you need to know — scientifically, visually and genetically — so by the end, you’ll be able to identify green vs hazel eyes with confidence. And possibly correct strangers in public, though I cannot officially encourage that.

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1. The Quick Answer (For the People Who Skim Blogs)

Green eyes

• Solid or near-solid colour
• A cool green tone with minimal brown present
• Caused by low melanin and strong light-scattering
• Rare — around 2% of the global population
• Do not change colour significantly in normal lighting

Hazel eyes

• A mix of colours (usually brown + green + amber)
• Defined by multiple tones or a “sunburst” pattern
• Medium melanin levels
• Much more common than green
• Appear to change colour due to lighting and pupil dilation

Now let’s get into the proper detail.

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2. What Determines Eye Colour? (The Science Bit — Don’t Panic)

Your eye colour is determined by the pigments in the iris and the way light is scattered by its structure. It’s a bit like the world’s smallest disco light system.

Four things matter most:

Melanin levels

Melanin is the pigment that makes the iris darker.

• High melanin → brown eyes
• Medium melanin → hazel eyes
• Low melanin → blue or green eyes

Lipochrome (pheomelanin)

A yellowish pigment that mixes with melanin to create green or hazel tones.

Rayleigh scattering

The same light-scattering effect that makes the sky blue. In lighter eyes, this scattering contributes to the perception of green.

Iris structure

Patterns, crypts, fibres and density all change how light moves, producing the unique shades and patterns you see in high-quality iris photographs.

This combination means that two people with “green eyes” can have completely different colours — and don’t get me started on hazel.

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3. What Are Green Eyes, Exactly?

Green eyes are the result of:

• Very low brown melanin,
• Some yellow pigment, and
• A lot of light scattering.

The combination produces a true green colour that appears consistent across the entire iris. Not blotchy, not patchy, not “mostly brown if you really look.” Just green.

How green eyes typically appear

• A uniform green or green-blue tone
• Occasionally a gold or amber ring around the pupil (but only slight!)
• Cool undertone
• Consistent colour in different lighting
• Visible fibre texture due to low pigment

Rarity

Only 2% of people worldwide have green eyes. Europe — particularly Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and parts of Scandinavia — has the highest concentrations. So if you have green eyes, congratulations: you are officially exotic and scientifically inconvenient to categorise.

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4. What About Hazel Eyes?

Hazel eyes are the overachievers of the eye-colour world. They refuse to commit to a single identity and instead present like a paint palette someone forgot to put the lid back on.

Hazel results from:

• Medium melanin levels
• A mixture of brown + green + amber pigments
• Uneven pigment distribution in the iris

Unlike green eyes, hazel eyes always contain brown — either near the pupil, around the edges, or scattered throughout.

How hazel eyes typically appear

• A multicoloured iris
• Brown near the pupil with green toward the edges
• A golden “sunburst” (technical term: central heterochromia)
• Warm undertones
• Noticeable changes depending on lighting, clothing colour, and pupil size

Why hazel eyes look like they change colour

Hazel eyes have multiple pigment zones. When the pupil dilates or contracts:

• Light reaches different parts of the iris
• Some pigments appear stronger than others
• The eye can look more brown, more green, or more amber

This is not magic, mood changes, or supernatural ancestry. It’s physics.

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5. The Key Differences Between Green and Hazel Eyes (Side-by-Side)

Below is the cleanest comparison for anyone who wants the differences spelled out without the sass:

Feature	Green Eyes	Hazel Eyes
Base pigment	Low melanin	Medium melanin
Presence of brown	Minimal to none	Always present
Colour consistency	Mostly uniform	Multicoloured / patchy
Tone	Cool	Warm
Appearance in light	Colour remains stable	Looks like it “changes”
Genetic rarity	Very rare	More common
Typical pattern	Smooth, even	Rings, bursts, mixed regions

If the iris looks like a complicated abstract painting, it’s hazel.
If it looks clean, even and green, it’s green.

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6. Why So Many People Misidentify Their Eye Colour

You would think identifying your own eye colour would be straightforward, but here we are.

Reason 1: Lighting lies to you

Bathroom lighting? Hazel will suddenly look brown.
Sunlight? Hazel leans green.
Shade? Hazel becomes moody amber.

Green doesn’t do this.

Reason 2: Camera phones are terrible at eye colour

Phone cameras:

• Overexpose the iris
• Add warmth artificially
• Blur texture
• Flatten colour

This is why iris photography — proper, controlled, studio-lit macro work — reveals colours people never realised they had.

Reason 3: Childhood assumptions

Many children are told their eye colour before it stabilises, and the label sticks for life. It’s like being named incorrectly and no one bothering to fix it.

Reason 4: Hazel isn’t well-defined in everyday language

Some people call hazel “light brown,” “golden,” “greenish,” “forest,” “hazelnut,” or — my personal favourite — “depends on my mood.”

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7. The Genetics: Why Hazel Is More Common Than Green

Eye colour inheritance isn’t the simple “blue from mum, brown from dad” story teachers gave us in the 90s. Over 16 genes influence eye colour.

Green eyes

Require a genetically awkward combination:

• Low melanin production
• High scattering
• A specific amount of yellow pigment
• AND the absence of dominant brown-eye genes

This is why green is so rare.

Hazel eyes

Require:

• Moderate melanin
• Some yellow pigment
• Slight uneven distribution

Genetically, hazel is easier to create. Think of hazel as the “default setting” when the body can’t quite decide between brown and green.

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8. Personality Myths (And the Boring Reality)

You’ll find endless articles insisting that:

• Green-eyed people are mysterious and alluring
• Hazel-eyed people are creative free spirits
• Brown-eyed people are trustworthy
• Blue-eyed people are apparently born in Scandinavia (news flash: no)

In reality, eye colour has absolutely no correlation to personality.
None. Zero. Zilch.

But humans love patterns where patterns don’t exist — and who am I to deny people their harmless pseudoscience? Just don’t quote it in a scientific debate.

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9. Do Green or Hazel Eyes Come With Any Medical Differences?

Both green and hazel eyes have less melanin than brown eyes

That means:

• Higher sensitivity to sunlight
• Higher risk of UV-related eye conditions
• More glare issues when driving or outdoors
• Increased risk of macular degeneration later in life

Wear sunglasses that actually block UV, not just the £3 “fashion” ones from the beach shop that will have you squinting like an angry mole.

Visible veins and redness

Lighter eyes show more contrast when the whites become irritated. Hazel eyes tend to mask this slightly better because they contain more brown.

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10. Which Eye Colour Is More Popular? (In Terms of Aesthetics)

A 2015 international survey found green eyes were the most attractive globally, followed by hazel.
Before anyone gets excited: attractiveness is cultural and subjective.

But for photography, especially iris photography, hazel eyes often produce the most dramatic images because of:

• Their colour variation
• Their “sunburst” patterns
• The dynamic shifts under light shaping

Green eyes photograph beautifully too, but in a clean, ethereal way rather than a fiery, multi-tone effect.

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11. How to Tell If Your Eyes Are Green or Hazel (A Photographer’s Method)

Iris photographers have a cheat sheet for this:

Step 1: Look in natural daylight

Not direct sunlight — diffuse daylight is best.

Step 2: Examine the region around the pupil

If there’s brown, it’s hazel.

Step 3: Check for multiple colours

One colour → green
Several colours → hazel

Step 4: Pay attention to temperature

Cool tone → more likely green
Warm tone → hazel

Step 5: Notice how your eyes look across different environments

If they noticeably shift:

• Green → more green
• Brown → more brown
• Golden → more golden

Congratulations, you’ve got hazel.

Green eyes hold steady and stubborn like a British queue.

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12. Why Iris Photography Makes These Differences So Clear

In controlled studio setups (e.g., The Touring Eye):

• Light is balanced
• Colour temperature is controlled
• Reflections are removed
• Details are magnified 50–70×
• Pigment distribution becomes obvious

People often discover:

• Their “green eyes” are actually hazel
• Their “brown eyes” contain green or amber
• Their hazel eyes are more complex than they ever realised

And the number of people who have green eyes but have been calling them hazel for 20 years?
Shockingly high.

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13. Final Verdict: The Actual Difference Between Green and Hazel Eyes

Green eyes

• Rare
• Solid, even colour
• Cool tone
• Low melanin
• Stable appearance
• No brown present

Hazel eyes

• Multi-coloured
• Brown always present
• Warm tone
• Medium melanin
• Colour-shifting appearance
• Sunburst patterns common

If you want the photographic equivalent of a bonfire, hazel does that.
If you want something clean, rare and striking, green is your winner.

Both are beautiful — and both photograph spectacularly when captured properly.

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TL;DR (Because We’ve All Got Things To Do)

• Green eyes are rare, cool-toned, uniform in colour, and do not contain brown.
• Hazel eyes are multi-toned, often have a brown centre, and appear to change colour.
• Hazel has more melanin, green has less.
• Genetics makes green harder to produce.
• Both need UV protection due to lower pigment levels.
• Iris photography makes differences obvious — phone cameras definitely don’t.