What makes peoples eyes change colors?!
Question:
What makes peoples eyes change colors?
Does everyone's eyes change colors to a certain degree with some just being more noticable than others?
Answers:
There are two things at work here.
One is that for certain people, mainly those with lighter eyes, like hazel, the colors they wear near their faces can make their eyes appear to change colors. It's an old trick, and one which makeup artists exploit all the time--using the right color of eyeshadow can make the color of the eyes look substantially different in different conditions.
The other is simply the effect of light on the eyes. People's eyes can appear to be a different color depending on the quality of the light in which they are seen. Soft lighting has a completely different effect on eye color than does bright. Also, a lot of exposure to bright sunlight, for a sustained amount of time, can make eyes actually change colors. The pigment cells in the iris are the same as the pigment cells in skin, so a lot of exposure to bright light can make the eye draw more pigment to the surface, to protect the eye. Those eyes will appear darker. When the sun exposure stops, they will gradually go back to their natural color, just as people who get tan in the summer from sun exposure gradually fade back to their natural color once winter rolls around.
I hope that helps explain it.