Beware of claims about eye color changing eye drops on TikTok

This is not the way to turn your brown eyes blue.

If you’ve been looking at those so-called eye color-changing eye drops being pushed on TikTok and other social media platforms, beware. Such drops may not work to change your eye color. Even worse, putting something in your eye that isn’t approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could cause your eye color to change to something you don’t want, like red, and require a trip to the emergency room. .

That’s why the the American Academy of Ophthalmology has issued a warning “sound the alarm about over-the-counter eye drops advertised as eye color changing solutions.” The warning emphasized: “These products are not FDA approved, have not been tested for safety or efficacy, and could potentially harm the eyes.”

When people talk about brown, blue or green eyes, they are usually only talking about the iris (the ring around the pupil) and not the entire eyeball. If your entire eyeball is brown, blue, or green, look at another ball next to your eyeball or see a doctor as soon as possible.

The color of your iris depends on how much melanin is in it and how the melanin is distributed throughout the iris. Because melanin is a brown pigment, people with brown eyes have more melanin than people with blue or green eyes. In fact, almost everyone is born with blue eyes. During the first three years of life, those blue eyes may turn brown as more melanin builds up in the iris. So if you have brown eyes (the most common eye color in the world), you might say to others who don’t, “I have more melanin in my iris than you do.”

Now those who produce and promote these so-called eye color changing eye drops claim that an ingredient in those drops can somehow change the melanin levels in your iris. But what concrete scientific evidence do they offer to support such claims? What about none?

Don’t be fooled by things like before-and-after photos or videos of the people who use the product. That’s not real scientific evidence. Unless you know these people personally, you have no idea if they even used the product or how their images were tampered with. And in this case, “manipulated” means digitally altered and does not imply that real doctors were involved in any way.

Let’s suspend for a moment this need for scientific evidence to claim things and say that these drops could somehow destroy melanin. Well, pigment isn’t just in your eyes for show and to make other people say, “You have beautiful eyes.” Melanin can help protect your eye cells from light. Additionally, other parts of your eye, such as your retina, may use melanin to function properly. Eye drops usually don’t stay in just one part of the eye, even if you say so. Therefore, they can easily spread beyond the iris. And indiscriminately destroying melanin in different parts of your eye can in turn lead to all kinds of eye damage.

And your eyes are pretty important. Primarily, they allow you to see things on TikTok, Instagram, and other similar social media platforms. Because your eyes can be very sensitive—which is one reason you don’t regularly strike your own and others’ eyes in greeting—it doesn’t take much to damage them. Moreover, your eyes are not just the windows to your soul. They can also be windows to your body in general. Something that enters through your eye, such as a virus, bacteria, or other pathogen, can also spread quickly to other parts of your body. That’s why you need to be extra careful with everything you put into it.

This is another example of why you shouldn’t rely solely on random social media posts for medical advice. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram can have so much quackery that they seem like giant ponds of misinformation and disinformation.

If you really want to change your eye color, consider wearing colored contact lenses. In fact, consider wearing colored contact lenses that have been prescribed, fitted and dispensed by a genuine and suitably qualified ophthalmologist. I’ve covered Forbes previously the dangers of using over-the-counter (or even under-the-counter) contact lenses. Even if something is made of the right materials, it can become contaminated with harmful substances such as viruses, bacteria, parasites or other pathogens if proper manufacturing, storage and placement procedures are not followed.

So when you hear claims about eyes from someone on social media, pay attention to what scientific evidence is being used, whether products being advertised are FDA approved, and whether the person making the claims is even qualified to do so. Otherwise you might even gouge out your eye, which would make you more than blue in many ways.