Miscellaneous desk
< December 29	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 31 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 30

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

There are contact lenses that can accomplish that song's title. I can't imagine how tinted lenses can make one's dark eyes lighter. Of course, making blue eyes brown would be simple, but how can something tinted make something appear lighter? 136.56.52.157 (talk) 05:31, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Contact lenses#Cosmetic contact lenses says: "Some colored contact lenses completely cover the iris, thus dramatically changing eye color." If the iris is covered with an opaque area, that area can have a light color. --174.89.144.126 (talk) 06:50, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you understand that "blue" is intended as a metaphor for sadness. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:18, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you understand that that was not what the question was about. --174.89.144.126 (talk) 20:47, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are you the OP? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:24, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No. I am. And thanks all, for the replies. 136.56.52.157 (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Contact lenses that are (mostly) opaque can also make brown irises (or the entire eyeball) appear white. This is done in movies, for example. They are reflective. David10244 (talk) 13:29, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Searching trademark applications, a somewhat recent one uses lasers to burn away melanin from the iris, leaving behind only the blue pigment, which essentially turns the brown eyes blue. The trademark applciation is dated 2013. Searching publications, there are multiple news articles in 2015 reporting that human expiraments were successful. But, there is no mention of the exact procedure. At the same time (2015), there are multiple publications referring to eye drops that reduce melanin to acheive the same effect. Further complication comes from studies noting that the experiments were on rabbits, not humans. In my opinion, a company in California worked on two methods to reduce melanin in the iris, performed experiments on rabbits, and were successful in turning brown eyes blue, but it is not available for human use at this time. On a completely separate topic, there is keratopigmentation, which does is not described as permanent. It is simply a procedure of injecting dye into the iris to change the apparent color. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 18:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]