Most of us assume tears are just salty water. Clear. Boring. Predictable. You cry because you're sad or because you're chopping an onion, and you expect a transparent drop to roll down your cheek. But bodies are weird. Sometimes, the fluid leaking from your eyes isn't clear at all. It can be blood-red, milky white, or even a startling shade of neon yellow.
If you've ever looked in the mirror and seen strange colored tears, your first instinct is probably a mix of "Am I dying?" and "Wait, is this cool?" Honestly, it’s usually somewhere in between. While clear tears are the physiological standard, our chemistry is constantly reacting to what we eat, the medications we take, and the infections we’re fighting.
When Tears Turn Red: It’s Not Always a Horror Movie
Seeing blood coming from your eyes is, understandably, terrifying. There is an actual medical term for this: haemolacria. It sounds like something out of a medieval medical text, but it’s a documented clinical condition where tears are partially or entirely composed of blood.
Usually, it’s not a sign of a supernatural curse.
The most common culprit is actually quite mundane. A tiny capillary in the conjunctiva—the thin membrane covering the white of your eye—can pop. It’s basically a bruise or a small burst vessel, similar to a nosebleed but located in the eye. You might wake up, rub your eyes too hard, and suddenly you’re leaking pinkish-red fluid.
However, there are more complex reasons. Dr. Barrett G. Haik, who served as the director of the University of Tennessee Hamilton Eye Institute, has documented cases where hormonal changes played a role. In very rare instances, some women experience "vicarious menstruation," where they bleed from extrauterine organs—including the eyes—during their period. It’s incredibly rare, but it highlights just how much our systemic health dictates the color of our ocular output.
Other times, it's about what's growing there. Pyogenic granulomas are small, vascular bumps that can grow on the tear duct or conjunctiva. They bleed easily. If one of these develops, every time you blink or cry, you might see a streak of red. It isn't just "bloody tears"; it's a physical obstruction that needs a specialist’s eyes—literally.
That Neon Glow: Why Your Tears Might Look Like Gatorade
Have you ever taken a high-potency Vitamin B complex and noticed your urine turns a bright, almost fluorescent yellow? The same thing can happen to your tears. Water-soluble vitamins like Riboflavin (B2) are notorious for this. If your body has more than it can process, it dumps the excess into your fluids.
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It’s harmless.
But there’s a more "diagnostic" version of yellow tears. If you go to an optometrist with a scratch on your eye, they’ll often use a fluorescein stain. This is a specialized orange dye that turns a brilliant, glowing green-yellow under blue light. It’s a tool, not a symptom. The dye clings to damaged corneal cells, allowing the doctor to see exactly where a piece of dust or a fingernail did some damage. If you leave the office and cry later that afternoon, don't be shocked if your tissue looks like a highlighter exploded on it.
Then there’s jaundice. When the liver is struggling, bilirubin builds up in the blood. We usually look for yellowing in the skin or the whites of the eyes (sclera), but that excess bilirubin can actually seep into the tear film. It’s a subtle, sickly yellow rather than the neon "vitamin" yellow, and it’s usually a signal that something is seriously wrong with your internal filtration system.
The Milky Way: White and Opaque Secretions
Sometimes tears aren't "colors" so much as they are textures. If your tears look milky or white, you're usually looking at a lipid (fat) imbalance.
Your tear film has three layers:
- The Mucus Layer: Keeps the tear stuck to the eye.
- The Water Layer: The bulk of the tear.
- The Oil Layer: Prevents the water from evaporating.
That oil comes from the Meibomian glands. If these glands are clogged or overactive—a condition called Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD)—the oil can come out thick and white. It’s basically "eye butter." When you cry, this oil mixes with the water, creating a cloudy, milky appearance.
It’s often accompanied by a "gritty" feeling, like you’ve got sand in your eyes. This isn't just about color; it's about the quality of the tear. If your tears are white and foamy, your eyes are likely incredibly dry because the "good" oils aren't forming a proper seal to keep the moisture in.
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Blue Tears and the Silver Lining
This is where things get truly weird. There are documented cases of people crying blue tears. Most of the time, this isn't a biological glitch; it’s an external one.
Argyria is a condition caused by the ingestion of silver. Before modern antibiotics, silver was used in all sorts of "cure-all" elixirs. If you take too much, your skin, fingernails, and yes, even your tears can take on a bluish-gray tint. The silver literally deposits in your tissues. Once it’s there, it’s mostly permanent. It’s the "Smurf" effect, medically speaking.
There's also occupational exposure. People working with specific industrial dyes or chemicals can sometimes find their sweat and tears changing color. Methylene blue, used in certain medications and diagnostic tests, is a frequent culprit for turning bodily fluids blue or green. It’s a vivid reminder that the eye isn't an isolated bubble; it’s a porous part of a larger system.
The Role of Infection and Pus
We have to talk about the "gross" stuff. Green or heavy yellow tears are almost always a sign of infection. When your immune system sends white blood cells (neutrophils) to fight off bacteria, those cells produce a green-tinted enzyme called myeloperoxidase.
If you have a bacterial conjunctivitis (pink eye), your "tears" will be thick, sticky, and greenish. It’s not actually a change in the tear itself, but rather the tear picking up the debris of a microscopic war happening on the surface of your eye. If you wake up with your eyelashes glued shut by a crusty, yellow-green substance, your body is telling you it needs help—likely in the form of antibiotic drops.
Why We Have Strange Colored Tears in the First Place
The chemistry of a tear is surprisingly volatile. We think of them as emotional outlets, but they are primarily defensive. Every time you blink, you're bathing your eye in a cocktail of lysozymes, lactoferrin, and antibodies.
When things go wrong, the color is the first red flag.
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The "strange" colors are often just a byproduct of the eye doing its job as an excretory organ. Just like your kidneys filter blood and produce urine, your tear glands are filtering plasma to create tears. If there’s a "contaminant" in your plasma—whether it's a drug like Rifampin (which is famous for turning tears and sweat orange) or a high concentration of bile—the tear glands will passively pass that color through to the surface of your eye.
What to Do When the Color Shifts
If you notice your tears aren't clear, don't panic, but don't ignore it either.
Check your meds first.
Are you on antibiotics? Taking a new multivitamin? Did you recently have an eye exam where they used drops? Most color shifts are temporary "echoes" of something you've put in your body.
Look at the "White" of the eye.
Is the sclera itself changing color? If the eye is red, it's irritation or a burst vessel. If the eye is yellow, it’s likely systemic (liver). If the eye looks normal but the tears are a weird color, it’s more likely to be a medication or a localized gland issue.
Assess the pain.
Strange colored tears without pain are often just a chemical fluke. Strange colored tears with pain, swelling, or blurred vision are a medical emergency.
Actionable Steps for Ocular Health
- Hydrate, but watch the supplements. If you see neon yellow, try cutting back on the B-vitamins for 48 hours to see if it clears up.
- Warm Compresses. If your tears are milky or white, you likely have clogged oil glands. A warm washcloth over your closed eyes for five minutes a day can melt those oils and get them flowing properly again.
- Check the "Ring." If you wear contacts and see strange colors, remove the lenses immediately. Dyes and bacteria can get trapped behind the lens, concentrating the color and potentially causing a corneal ulcer.
- See a Pro. If you experience haemolacria (bloody tears), you need a workup. While it might be a burst capillary, a doctor needs to rule out conjunctival tumors or tear duct obstructions.
Bodies are rarely as simple as a textbook makes them out to be. We are walking chemistry sets, and sometimes that chemistry spills out of our eyes in shades of orange, green, or red. It's a weird, visceral way our bodies communicate that something—even something small—has changed on the inside. Keeping an eye on your tears might seem a bit "extra," but it's one of the fastest ways to get a read on your internal health without a blood test.
If the color persists for more than a day or is accompanied by any change in your vision, skip the Google search and head to an ophthalmologist. Clear tears are the goal, but the "strange" ones are the story-tellers. Over-the-counter lubricating drops can help flush out irritants, but they won't fix a systemic color change. Focus on the root cause—whether it's your diet, your environment, or an underlying infection—and the clarity will usually return on its own.