Hazel eyes shift visibly with the colors and light around them, so the first step is finding which way yours lean: toward green or toward gold. Green-leaning hazel comes forward with red-family colors such as terracotta, rust and plum, and with an olive or forest green that echoes it. Gold-leaning hazel responds to blue-violet and teal, which sit opposite gold, and with bronze, camel or mustard that echo it.
Your color season decides the exact shade of each. If you have not found it yet, the Color Season Quiz takes twelve questions.
The green-or-gold test
You need two pieces of fabric, one mid-green (olive or moss) and one gold or amber (mustard, camel or bronze), daylight from a window, and your phone.
- Hold the green fabric under your chin and take a close photo of your eyes.
- Swap to the gold fabric, same light, same distance, and take a second photo.
- Compare the two photos side by side.
Many hazel eyes visibly switch: greener with the green fabric, warmer and browner with the gold. The fabric that produces the eye color you like better is the direction to dress in. If both look equally good, you have a balanced hazel and can work from either list below.
Take the test seriously, but not as final. The American Academy of Ophthalmology notes that green and hazel eyes can change color with the surrounding light, so a hazel eye under a warm kitchen bulb is a different color than at a north window. Compare photos taken in the same light, and do not compare today’s photo with last week’s.
Bringing out the green
Red sits opposite green on the color wheel, so the red family makes green flecks look greener. For hazel eyes, the earthier members of that family usually work best: terracotta, rust, brick, burgundy and plum. Purple helps too, since it sits opposite the yellow in many hazel greens.
For echo, choose a green that matches the green in your iris, which for hazel is usually olive, moss or a muted forest rather than a clear emerald.
Bringing out the gold
Gold and amber are yellow-oranges, and the opposite of yellow-orange is blue-violet. Periwinkle, violet, soft navy and teal all sharpen gold flecks by contrast. Deep teal is a particularly useful color for warm hazel eyes, because it carries both the blue that contrasts with the gold and a hint of the green that the eye already contains.
For echo, look to bronze, camel, mustard and warm brown. These pull the eye toward its golden side; on a hazel eye with a lot of brown, they can also make it read simply as light brown.
Colors for hazel eyes by season
Hazel eyes appear most often with Autumn coloring, and also in Soft Summer and the Spring seasons. Each row uses colors from that season’s palette.
| Season | To bring out green | To bring out gold |
|---|---|---|
| Soft Summer | Rose, mauve, sage | Periwinkle, dusty blue, pewter |
| Soft Autumn | Terracotta, salmon, olive | Muted teal, camel |
| True Autumn | Rust, pumpkin, forest | Deep teal, mustard |
| Deep Autumn | Brick, aubergine, forest | Dark teal, dark mustard |
| True Spring | Coral, poppy, kelly green | Clear blue, golden yellow |
| Light Spring | Warm pink, light coral, aqua | Clear sky, butter |
Choose the direction first, green or gold. The season only picks the shade.
Brown eyes: light, medium and dark
Brown eyes work with the same two routes, contrast and echo, but the deciding factor is depth.
Light brown and amber eyes have a lot of gold in them and behave like gold-leaning hazel: teal, periwinkle and soft navy contrast with them; camel, bronze and warm brown echo them. They are typical of warm Autumn and Spring coloring.
Medium brown eyes work with a wide range of colors. Echo with a brown from your own palette’s neutrals, chocolate, warm taupe or espresso, and add contrast with whatever blue your season carries, from slate blue in True Summer to clear blue in True Spring.
Very dark brown eyes, close to black, gain the most from depth contrast. Deep jewel tones such as sapphire, emerald and burgundy, and in Winter palettes true black and pure white, make a dark eye look darker and clearer. They often go with Deep Autumn, Deep Winter or the high-contrast Winter seasons.
Are hazel eyes warm or cool?
Not on their own. The quiz treats golden hazel as a warm clue and soft, gray-green hazel as a sign of muted coloring, but eye color is one question among twelve and never decides your undertone by itself. Warm vs cool undertone reads it from the skin. Clear green eyes without a brown ring are covered in colors for green eyes.