Brown hair is a color of human hair, a variety of red hair, most commonly described as brown or dark red in color. Brown hair ranges in shade from medium to dark. It can be found with a variety of skin tones and eye colors. The chemical pigments that cause reddish-brown hair coloring are usually pheomelanin, with high levels of eumelanin; However, reddish-brown hair is caused by a mutated melanocortin-1 receptor gene in Northwestern Europeans and a mutated TYRP1 gene in Melanesians and Austronesians, both genes that reduce melanin production in hair cells.