Did Elizabeth Taylor Actually Have Naturally Violet-Coloured Eyes?

For many years, individuals have speculated about Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes, questioning their true hue: Are they blue velvet, deep purple or vivid violet?

Such is the legend surrounding Taylor’s dazzling eyes that she even named a perfume after them — Elizabeth Taylor Violet Eyes.

Certainly, the controversy about Taylor’s hanging peepers has continued on social media years after her dying in 2011, with posts on Reddit, TikTok and Instagram rehashing the long-held assertion that the display legend was born with violet-colored eyes. 

For instance, in 2023, a submit on the subreddit r/WhatisMyEyeColour referred to Taylor as “the gorgeous actor with violet eyes,” earlier than asking, “Have been they actually violet? They appear extra like an excellent intense blue to me.”

(Temporary_Trick5345/Reddit)

The Eyes By no means Lie — However the Digital camera Can

Whereas some individuals have claimed that Taylor did have violet eyes, others say her eyes had been a hanging shade of blue that she enhanced via intelligent make-up methods, wardrobe selections and professional lighting. 

Classic Hollywood Central, for instance, mentioned Taylor’s eyes “had been in all probability a really deep blue that might appear like violet in the precise gentle. She additionally accentuated this impact by utilizing numerous blue and violet eye shadow shades all through her profession.”

To verify Taylor’s eye coloration as soon as and for all, Snopes contacted the Elizabeth Taylor property. A spokesperson for House of Taylor, a firm managing the posh manufacturers and archive established by the property, confirmed that Taylor by no means wore contacts or coloured contacts, however didn’t explicitly state her true eye coloration. 

With the “Cleopatra” actress’ profession starting within the Forties, black-and-white images added to the mystique surrounding her eye coloration. As Hollywood started to make use of coloration movie extra, they typically oversaturated pictures to reinforce options equivalent to eye and lip hue. Publicity photographs typically altered the “violet” coloration of Taylor’s eyes to make them pop and seem brighter.

Taylor typically wore clothes, equipment and eye make-up in jewel tones equivalent to blue, inexperienced or purple to reinforce her eye coloration. In a single close-up scene within the 1974 drama “The Driver’s Seat,” Taylor’s character swiftly applies blue eye shadow with a small beauty applicator wand. In 2016, movie star make-up artist Mario Dedivanovic (who counts Kim Kardashian amongst his well-known purchasers) posted the scene to Instagram, writing, “Love this. #elizabethtaylor. She did that eye in seconds with that tiny brush – shadow, crease and liner. Growth 👏.”

Eye Colour is Decided by Melanin in Irises

Paler-colored eyes typically mirror shades of blue, inexperienced and aqua, relying on the individual’s clothes and lighting situations, whether or not pure or enhanced. Like many individuals with blue or inexperienced eyes, Taylor’s appeared to vary tone relying on what she was carrying and her cosmetics.

Blue eyes can, underneath sure lighting situations, create the optical phantasm of showing purple or violet. Eye coloration can appear to vary based mostly on the eyes’ gentle absorption, whether or not from the solar or the reflection of clothes and enhanced lighting.

Even amongst ophthalmologists, Taylor’s “true” eye coloration is open to interpretation. Live Science spoke with ophthalmic laser and microsurgeon Dr. Norman Saffra, who informed the outlet, “There are numerous shades of blues and grays, with many in-between. Violet might have been her typical pigmentation,” including, “It is potential to have that eye coloration; all of it is determined by the quantity of melanin.”

Violet is a coloration carefully associated to purple that sits subsequent to blue within the red, yellow, blue color wheel. Whereas exceedingly uncommon, violet or purple eyes can happen because of an absence of melanin, or pure pigment, within the irises, often because of albinism or a genetic mutation.

Melanin is a pure pigment chargeable for the colour of pores and skin, hair and eyes. Eye coloration is expounded to the quantity of melanin within the entrance layers of the iris. Folks with dark-brown eyes have a considerable amount of melanin within the iris, whereas individuals with paler shades like gentle blue or inexperienced have a lot much less of this pigment of their irises.

Taylor’s eye coloration doubtless appeared at some instances violet and at different instances blue, because of the quantity of melanin current within the stroma (the thickest layer of the cornea) of her iris, and the way in which by which gentle was mirrored and dispersed from her eye. 

The American Academy of Ophthalmology doesn’t point out violet or purple eyes when discussing the rarest eye coloration, noting that inexperienced eyes happen least naturally on the earth inhabitants:

Inexperienced eyes are the rarest, with solely about 2% of the world’s inhabitants having them. Inexperienced eyes will not be due solely to the quantity of melanin within the eye, but in addition with how the sunshine scatters off the attention. The optical impact of sunshine scattering off the melanin in these eyes makes them inexperienced.

Violet Eyes Are So Uncommon, They’re Doubtless a Genetic Mutation

In the meantime, the Optical Academy notes that “true violet-colored eyes are exceedingly uncommon and often a results of albinism. Whereas some people, like Elizabeth Taylor, might have deep blue eyes that may appear purple, genuine purple eyes are present in lower than 1% of the worldwide inhabitants.”

Ocular albinism is a genetic situation particularly affecting the eyes, characterised by a big discount or full absence of pigment within the retina. This lack of pigment causes a number of vision-related points, together with gentle sensitivity, and sometimes ends in very light-blue eyes that may seem purple and even pink in sure lighting. Ocular albinism impacts 1 in 50,000 individuals.

In response to The National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation: “A standard fantasy is that individuals with albinism have pink eyes. In truth there are various kinds of albinism and the quantity of pigment within the eyes varies. Though some people with albinism have reddish or violet eyes, most have blue eyes. Some have hazel or brown eyes. Nevertheless, all types of albinism are related to imaginative and prescient issues.”

Taylor was not identified to have any optical mutation or imaginative and prescient issues that may have impacted her eye coloration, however she did have the uncommon genetic mutation distichiasis, which prompted an additional row of naturally occurring lashes to develop on her high and backside lash strains. This genetic mutation doubtless enhanced the looks however not the colour of Taylor’s eyes.

As famous above, it is extremely uncommon to have violet eyes if one doesn’t have ocular albinism. Most likely, Taylor’s eyes had been certainly a uncommon shade of blue that appeared violet underneath sure lighting situations and when she wore specific wardrobe and make-up selections. It is extremely unlikely they had been really violet, seeing as this coloration is usually discovered among the many small inhabitants of people that have ocular albinism. Whereas she did have a genetic mutation, it resulted in thick eyelashes, not in her distinctive blue/violet eye coloration. For these causes, we charge the declare that Taylor’s eye coloration was naturally violet as “Unproven.”

In a earlier truth verify, Snopes investigated the declare that Alexandria’s Genesis is a mutation that turns individuals into “good human beings” who exhibit purple eyes six months after beginning.

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