Blonde Hair Brown Eyes – Is It Natural?

Have you ever thought about why you don’t see people with blonde hair and brown eyes? We are talking about natural blondes, at least. Is it genetically impossible to have this combination of traits? Or is it natural?

Is it possible for a person to have blonde hair and brown eyes? Genetics says that a person can inherit the eye color of either one of their parents. This makes it possible to have blonde hair and brown eyes, but the likelihood is unlikely.

Read on to know more about blonde hair and brown eyes. You will also know how rare this genetic combination is and how you can pull off this look.

Is It Natural for a Person to Have Blonde Hair Brown Eyes?

blonde hair brown eyes
Anya Taylor

Why is it rare to find a natural blonde with brown eyes? Although a person can have blonde hair and brown eyes, it is a natural contradiction. Theoretically, these people should not exist.

To understand this contradiction better, let us examine what causes a person to have blonde eyes. It is also important to determine why people get brown eyes.

You have a high melanin count if you have brown eyes. Melanin is the compound that provides color to your body. On the other hand, if you have blonde hair, you have low melanin in your body. This is the reason why your hair is lighter.

Now, how can a person have both high and low melanin? This is why having blonde hair and brown eyes is a biological paradox. By all accounts, these people should not exist, but they do. However, this combination is quite rare.

How rare is this combination? Natural blondes are rare by themselves, but natural blondes with brown eyes are rarer.

What Exactly Is a Blonde Hair Color?

Familiarize Yourself with the Hair Color Wheel

To understand what blonde hair color is, you need to familiarize yourself with the hair color wheel. This is essentially a color wheel that includes ten possible hair colors, divided into ten segments.

Shades 6 to 10 Represent the Blonde Hair

The number 1 represents the darkest hair color, and ten is the lightest. Compare your hair against the chart. If its color falls within shades 6 to 10, you have blonde hair. Hair with a gold or yellowish tint is blonde.

High Pheomelanin But Low Brown Eumelanin

The reason why people have blonde hair is that they have high pheomelanin but low brown eumelanin. The level 6 color at the hair color wheel might seem like it is brown, but not exactly. It is more like a mix of yellow and black.

Tend to Have Golden Tones Around the Base

Are you still a bit confused? Then you can get a more accurate read if you examine the color at the base of your hair. Blonde human hair tends to have golden tones around the base. Meanwhile, real brown hair has brown tones.

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What Can Cause Blonde Hair Brown Eyes?

0.1% Chance of a Baby Being Born with Brown Eyes and Blonde Hair

In North America, the percentage of people having brown eyes and blonde hair is quite low. According to studies, there is only a 0.1% chance of a baby being born with both traits.

Higher Chance If the Parents Have Strong Eastern European Ancestries

What if the parents have strong Eastern European ancestries? In that case, the chance of their child having blonde hair and brown eyes gets significantly higher. If both parents have Eastern European lineage, the probability can jump as high as 5%.

Therefore, it is still quite a toss-up even if you have all the chips that you can stack in your favor. Getting this rare combination of traits is still relatively rare.

Babies with Brown Eyes Have More Melanin

Taken separately, brown eyes and blonde hair are not rare at all. Brown is the most common eye color in the world. Even if the parents both have European ancestry, their baby has a 20% of having brown eyes.

However, when babies are born with brown eyes, they also have more melanin. The babies will also have darker skin and hair in such a case.

Having Brown Hair and Brown Eyes Is Not Impossible

So, in essence, although blonde hair and brown eyes are quite rare, they are not impossible. You can also potentially have both traits if you live in Eastern Europe or have Slavic blood.

In addition, there is another reason why you can’t see a lot of people with blonde hair and brown eyes. Many born blonde with brown eyes noticed their hair darkening quite a bit as they got older. Most of them started blonde but ended up with brown hair when they turned into adults.

Why Do Many Eastern Europeans Have Blonde Hair Brown Eyes?

For centuries, Eastern Europe has had ties with Western Europe and India. Western Europe has conquered a good chunk of the world for more than a hundred years.

This means that Western Europeans have spread their genetics due to their occupation. This is why a lot of people from other continents have European genes. For instance, many Mongolians have blonde hair and blue eyes.

Many of the European conquerors intermarried with the natives. Several of them also came back to Europe with their families.

This is why many Europeans also have genes from races from other continents. Over the centuries, these factors led to Eastern European people that have brown eyes and blonde hair.

So, people can have blonde hair and brown eyes through a unique genetic combination. Although it seems to break all laws of genetics, having brown eyes and blonde hair is not impossible.

Can You Tell What Color Hair Your Baby Can Get?

If you base your assumptions on your high school biology class, guessing a child’s hair color may seem simple. However, hair and eye colors are more than just genetics.

A person’s hair gets its color from a natural pigment. The hair’s exact shade will be based on the amount of pigment, called melanin, that a person has.

This means that there are no separate genes for determining the color of a person’s hair. Instead, the genes control how much melanin a person can have.

Another thing about melanin briefly mentioned above is that it does not stay the same amount throughout a person’s life. This means a person can have different colored hair at different ages. This also happens with a person’s eyes, but not quite often.

This is why most people born with blonde hair and brown eyes usually get darker hair the older they get. Many started as blonde when they were kids. However, by senior year, they are almost brunette.

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Two Types of Melanin

One fact about melanin is that it comes in two types – eumelanin and pheomelanin. Each one contributes to the color of one’s hair:

Eumelanin

Eumelanin is responsible for making a person’s hair brown or black. Therefore, the amount of eumelanin in the body dictates how dark that person’s hair is. Small amounts of eumelanin make a person blonde.

Higher amounts of it make the hair brown. There is also a sub-type of eumelanin that makes the hair black. Interestingly, low levels of this sub-type of eumelanin make the hair almost entirely white.

Pheomelanin

On the other hand, pheomelanin is responsible for making the hair reddish or brown.

Fact: All humans have at least some pheomelanin in their bodies.

However, true redheads have very little to no eumelanin.

Which Parent Determines Your Baby’s Hair Color?

blonde hair brown eyes percentage

The active color genes often determine a baby’s hair and eye color. Which parent the baby gets its hair and eye color from will depend mainly on the parents’ hair color. It could also be identifiable by chance.

For instance, if one parent has darker brown hair than the other, their offspring may have dark brown hair. However, it is not always that simple.

The reason is that there are times when the hair color is not even the same as either parent. It could be that either parent has a recessive gene that does not always come up with every generation.

For instance, a blonde and a brown-haired person has a redhead child. It turned out that the brown-haired person’s grandfather was also a redhead. It means that the redhead gene skipped two generations before showing up again.

Generally speaking, dark hair chromosomes are more common than light hair chromosomes. Children with brown-haired and blonde parents will usually have brown hair as well. Only if two blonde people have offspring would the chances of getting a blonde baby increase significantly.

Again, is it possible for an adult with naturally blonde hair to have brown eyes? It’s complicated to deal with eye color inheritance. But having blonde hair and brown eyes is rare but possible.

Rarest Hair and Eye Color Combination in Humans

Different Shades of Blonde

Now that we discuss the science behind blonde hair and brown eyes, let’s focus on the hair. Blonde is not just a singular color. Blonde hair comes in several shades. Here are the basic categories of blonde hair color:

1. Light Blonde

The light blonde hair color is the most common shade that you can find. This blonde color is usually a light ash color with hues of gold or honey. It is what comes to mind when people think of blonde hair.

2. Dark Blonde

Dark blonde hair is quite similar to light brown hair, but the hues are quite different. It is more ash than actual brown with hints of gold or honey.

3. Strawberry Blonde

This is the rarest natural blonde color. It is still a light shade of blonde, but there is a hint of red or pink. Some strawberry blondes have a hint of copper-red.

4. Dirty Blonde

This shade of blonde is somewhere in-between light and dark blonde colors. This blonde shade has ashy-brown hues, sometimes coming off as dark gray.

As mentioned earlier, a natural blonde person might have had light blonde hair as a kid. They may then end up with dirty blonde or dark blonde hair as they grow older.

Makeup Tips for Stunning Blonde Hair Brown Eyes Looks

blonde hair brown eyes makeup
Katherine Heigl

Genetics aside, even if you are not a natural blonde, you would still like to look your best. So, here are a couple of tips for stunning makeup for blonde hair and brown eyes.

1. Eye Makeup

Stick to Brown Mascara

Since both your eyes and hair are on the pale side, so stick to brown mascara. The brown will be able to blend well with your eyes while highlighting them. It would be like you are enhancing the color of your eyes.

Use Brown Eyeliner to Frame Your Eyes Better

Using brown eyeliner will frame your eyes much better and makes them more noticeable. This will be more effective if you have naturally blonde eyelashes. The same is true if the contrast between your eyes and skin is too strong for your tastes.

Eyeshadow Colors

A couple of eyeshadow colors that would work well with natural blonde hair and brown eyes include:

  • Different shades of brown
  • Peach
  • Soft pink
  • Violet

Add a Hint of White Eyeshadow Below the Eyebrows

You can also add a hint of white eyeshadow right below your eyebrows. This can provide a bit of a glow to your skin and complement your blonde hair.

2. Eyebrows

Keep your eyebrows trimmed and shaped all the time. This will give you a polished look and frame your eyes better.

If your eyebrows are darker than your hair, use a bit of crème bleach. This helps if you want to make them lighter to make you look like a natural blonde. You can also trim your brows to reduce the number of hairs inside the frame. This can give you a delicate blonde appearance.

3. Foundation and Concealer

You Might Always Need to Wear Foundation and Concealer

If you colored your hair blonde, you might always need to wear foundation and concealer. This can keep your skin from looking sallow. People with dark hair and eyes tend to have olive or yellow skin undertones.

With your natural hair color, these undertones are beautiful. However, the undertone gets dulled when paired with light hair color.

Pay Extra Attention to the Thinner Areas on Your Face

Pay extra attention to the areas on your face where the skin is a bit thinner than the rest. This includes the skin around the eyes. Doing so will even out the skin tone of your face, thus giving you a nice even canvas for colors.

Pick a Foundation That Gives You a Flattering Look

Try as many brands of concealers and foundations as you can. You can even try the discount brands. Who knows? You might get lucky with the discount brands. Experiment with different brands to figure out how your skin reacts to them.

These products can alter the skin tone of your face. Pick the one that gives you a flattering look, even without additional makeup.

4. Blush Colors

When choosing blush colors for blonde hair and brown eyes makeup, go for light brown, soft pink, and peach. If you want to get your look right the first time, you should use light brown.

Do you have a limited budget? Does it not give you that much room to experiment with different colors first? Then go straight to the light brown blush. 

5. Lips

Choose a Shade Close to Neutral

Are you searching for a lipstick that perfectly blends with dark blonde hair and brown eyes? Then choose a shade that is as close to neutral as possible. You don’t want to put too much emphasis on your lips and draw attention to the eyes.

A couple of colors that work well with other makeup for blonde hair and brown eyes include:

  • Orange-pink
  • Pearlescent
  • Perfect pink
  • Coral
  • Light brown
  • And similar shades.

You Can’t Go Wrong with Basic Red Lipstick

On the other hand, you cannot go wrong with basic red lipstick. This shade will always go well with whatever hair and eye color you are rocking.

Fun Facts About Blondes

Natural blondes are pretty rare. Only 2% of the entire population of the United States are born blonde. Factor in the brown eyes, and only 5% of natural blondes naturally have brown eyes. This makes the combination almost impossible.

The average person can have as many as 120,000 strands on their head. Blondes can have more than 150,000. Also, blonde men rarely suffer from male-pattern baldness.

It is not true that you will automatically have dark hair if you have dark skin. An aboriginal tribe in New Guinea called the Melanesians consists of dark-skinned people. However, a large chunk of their population is natural blondes.

Finland has the most naturally blonde citizens in the world. Take Jean Harlow, one of the first “blonde” bombshells who made it big in Hollywood, as an example. She was not a real blonde, as she always claimed.

The truth was her stylist would often bleach her hair using household bleach and ammonia. There were no commercially available hair bleaching products at the time. This led to Harlow’s hair eventually falling off. This further resulted in her wearing wigs to cover the bald spots.

Conclusion – Blonde Hair Brown Eyes – Is It Natural?

Is it possible for a person to have naturally blonde hair and brown eyes? Genetics says that a person can inherit their parents’ hair and eye colors. This means blonde hair and brown eyes are possible. However, this combination is very rare.

Having natural blonde hair and brown eyes is a genetic puzzle. Having brown eyes means the person has low melanin. Meanwhile, having blonde hair suggests otherwise. However, even though this combination of hair and eye color is impossible on paper, some people do have it.

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