Eye Color

Your result, the DNA positions behind it, and what the research says.

9/10 confidence.

About Eye Color

This trait reads a switch inside HERC2 that sets how much pigment the neighboring OCA2 gene lets the iris make, plus two changes that move the result within that setting. The switch is recessive: it takes two copies to turn pigment down far enough for a light iris. On that light background, a change in OCA2 itself leaves slightly more pigment in place, which is the difference between a blue iris and a green one. A separate change near TYRP1 shifts the shade among darker eyes. Eye color draws on more genes than these three, so the shade varies even between people who read the same here.

Good to know: There is no blue pigment: a blue iris is nearly pigment-free and scatters light. The main switch is recessive, so light eyes need two copies of it. Green and hazel are exactly what a single-gene account cannot produce.

Fun fact: Everyone with blue eyes shares one ancestor - the blue-eye version traces to a single mutation 6,000-10,000 years ago.

Discovery: OCA2 R419Q was tied to green and hazel eyes as the blue switch was being mapped.

The Variants

The 3 positions this trait reads

Gene: HERC2, OCA2, TYRP1

rs12913832 HERC2 - the switch; two copies gives blue

rs1800407 OCA2 R419Q - shifts a light iris toward green

rs1408799 TYRP1 - moves the shade between brown and green

Location: Chr 15:28,120,472

dbSNP rs12913832

The studies

Predictive accuracy of genetic variants for eye color in a Kazakh population using the IrisPlex system (Bukayev A et al., BMC research notes, 2024)

Association between brown eye colour in rs12913832:GG individuals and SNPs in TYR, TYRP1, and SLC24A4 (Meyer OS et al., PloS one, 2020)

Forensic DNA Phenotyping: Genes and Genetic Variants for Eye Color Prediction (Brancato D et al., Genes, 2023)

Prediction of Eye Colour in Scandinavians Using the EyeColour 11 (EC11) SNP Set (Meyer OS et al., Genes, 2021)

The Chromatin Organization Close to SNP rs12913832, Involved in Eye Color Variation, Is Evolutionary Conserved in Vertebrates (Brancato D et al., International journal of molecular sciences, 2024)

Other lifestyle traits

Hair Curl: A variant near the trichohyalin gene, which shapes the hair follicle root and is the main driver of straight versus wavy hair in people of European descent.

Hair Thickness: A change in a developmental gene that thickens individual hair strands and makes them straighter, alongside a distinctive scooped shape to the front teeth.

Red Hair: Five high-penetrance changes in the MC1R pigment receptor, the main genetic route to red hair and fair, easily burned skin.

Back to All Traits

Content updated September 2026.

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