Iris painting can defeat an artificial eye confection process. Objectives: Evaluate pigment stability of paints used for iris painting. Methods: For the study, 150 discs in heat-curing acrylic resin were made. Half of these were done with the addition of an UV blocking agent. Discs were painted with oil paints, automotive polyester and nitrocellulose paints in black, brown, blue, red and white colors, five discs for each resin, color and paint. Each specimen was constituted of one painted disk in colorless heat-curing acrylic resin and another colored with a basic sclera pigment. The painting was accomplished in one of the surfaces of the colorless resin disk and protected by means of an acetate layer. Disks were united with aid of cold-curing acrylic resin. All specimens were submitted to an artificial aging chamber. To evaluate color changes a reflective spectrophotometer was used. Results: All readings shown to be compatible with the results visualized after each aging period. Significant differences were found for all paints, best results were found for both automotive paints, polyester followed by nitrocellulose, worse results were found for artist oil paints. Color pigments in all paints presented a significant color alteration, in similar aspects, the black and brown pigment specimens showed least color alterations after artificial aging followed by blue and red, the later presented similar behavior among paints. The white pigment presented the worse resistance to artificial aging. All paints presented better results in the acrylic resin group with the UV blocking agent. Conclusions: Automotive paints should be preferred for artificial eye painting according to their base pigment stability associated to a reliable UV blocking agent to achieve long-lasting ocular prostheses.

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