Green Contacts on Brown Eyes

Want to trade your brown eyes for something more exotic? Green eyes, which add to the allure of celebrities like Tyra Banks, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Connelly, and Scarlett Johansson, are a relative rarity, reaching their highest prevalence among Northern European populations. But what if you want jade-colored eyes, but were born with coffee-colored ones?

Fortunately, technology has the answer: colored contact lenses. Once only possible to darken or change the color of light-colored eyes, advances in technology have enabled even those with dark eyes to take on a convincing lighter hue, even green. These contact lenses will obscure the dark brown irises of their wearer, and instead reflect a color embedded in the pigment of the contact lens. The best quality lenses will have the subtle striations and natural color variations seen normally in green eyes, so that the wearer looks like he or she really has green eyes.

Note that in the case of dark brown eyes, you should look for opaque tints, not enhancement tints. Enhancement tints are only for light-colored eyes looking for a subtle change; opaque tints can completely transform the color of your eyes.

CibaVision's FreshLook contact lens has a series of colored contacts that works for people with even dark brown eyes. Called "ColorBlends", the product has 2 variants that will make your eyes green. One, called Gemstone Green, gives your eyes a richly emerald green color. The other, Sea Green, gives your eyes a bluish green color, almost aquamarine. Which you choose depends on what type of green you're looking for.

The one criticism of ColorBlends that I have is that the colors they give your eyes aren't very realistic: your eyes might be brilliantly colored, but no one will think they are your natural eye color. You can see the pictures to the right to see what I mean.

If that doesn't matter to you, then I think ColorBlends' two green options are worth evaluating. They are readily available and very popular.

A bit more difficult to procure in the United States, but with a considerably more realistic look, are lenses from the companies Europa, Solotica and Tutti. They typically serve the Latin American market, where dark brown eyes predominate, but you can still find them, usually by buying them online, in the United States, too.

What makes these lenses a bit more realistic looking is:

• More subdued colors: Green eyes aren't typically deeply-hued; they tend to have a color that's not so pronounced. They won't "glow" like the more brilliantly-colored lenses like FreshLook ColorBlends.
• Natural striations: With a variation of related colors radiating from the pupil, these naturally-occurring color patterns make your colored iris look more natural.
• Non-uniform color: Even green eyes naturally have a bit of either blue, brown, or hazel highlights. These types of lenses try to replicate that with a more natural-appearing mix of colors.

If you're willing to wait a bit longer and shell out quite a bit more money, then you can have a custom-made set of colored lenses made for you. The benefit is that you have complete control over how bright or how subdued you'd like the color, as well as any other effects you'd like to have (see the pictures to the right: some opted for bright green eyes, some for subtly green ones). The color of the naturally-occurring iris flecks, as well as the limbal ring (the usually dark ring on the outside of your iris) and corona (starburst of color along the inside perimeter of your iris), can have an enormous impact on the look of your eyes when you wear colored lenses.

The pictures to the right, all from Custom Colored Contacts, demonstrate the use of a laminated lens process that can lighten even the darkest brown eyes. A pigmented layer is sandwiched between two layers of hydroxyethylmethacrylate (the plastic used to make soft contact lenses), so that your eye and eyelid only touch nonpigmented materials. They can not apply their pigment to your current lenses, but they can, like all of the other options on this page, create custom lenses with a correction factor if you're nearsighted or farsighted.

Keep in mind that these lenses come at a cost: up to $800 per lens. Compare that to $15-40 for FreshLook ColorBlends (per lens) and about $45+ (per lens) for Solotica lenses.