• Question: Why do we all have different eye and hair colours?

    Asked by cookieninja12 to Joe, Juan, Rory on 11 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by laviniao, .
    • Photo: Joe Sweeney

      Joe Sweeney answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      Hair and eye colours are all slightly different to each other because of the way the materials inside are made. Hair colour comes from two pigment or dye called eumelanin and pheomelanin. The first one is orange/yellow, the second brown/black. The actually colour of the hair results from how the two dyes are mixed and also how well the hair fibre itself (which is made from keratin) absorbs the dyes. So the colours are always a little bit different. It’s abut the same for eye colour: the iris (the coloured part) is a muscle and it also contains the same two dyes as in hair. The proportions of the dyes gives the iris the colour we see and it’s always a little but different because the mixing is never 100% accurate.

      Phew!

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