A customer's guide to coloured contact Lenses

contact lenses can accurate many vision problems and let you ditch the glasses. but these small, plastic disks can also be used to exchange the coloration of your iris and come up with a whole new look.

there are many kinds of colored contacts to pick out from, relying on how a good deal of a exchange you’re looking for:

    subtle. these decorate your natural eye coloration, generally deepening or adding vibrancy.

    colour-converting. these lenses provide your iris the arrival of a very specific coloration, and may paintings on even the darkest eye colorations.

    mild filtering. Athletes like this type because those lenses improve color vision, along with brightening the coloration of the ball during a tennis in shape.

    “birthday party” lenses. these lenses absolutely change the iris or even the whole eye, to some other, often unnatural, color or pattern. generally utilized in movies and for different theatrical uses.

Use FDA-authorized Contacts only, Please

contact lenses worn for cosmetic functions need to be fitted by an eye care professional. inside the fall of 2005, the U.S. Congress enacted rules that declared coloured contact lenses to be scientific devices — making it illegal to promote non-prescription colored lenses.

Thomas Steinemann, MD, a spokesman for the yank Academy of Ophthalmology, says you must be cautious of lenses you could get without a prescription: “How do you recognize if they’re sterile, in the event that they’re approved by way of the FDA, or in the event that they’re broken?”

“anybody getting coloured lenses has to have their eyes professionally measured and the lenses successfully geared up,” Dr. Steinemann says. “And a observe-up eye examination should be executed to evaluate whether the patient is having any problem the usage of the lenses or if there is any eye damage.” Why? “because despite the fact that coloured contact lenses might not correct imaginative and prescient, they nevertheless have the same capacity to cause damage,” he explains.

possible troubles with touch lenses encompass hypersensitive reactions, accumulation of protein at the lenses, and eye inflammation due to mistaken lens care. If contact lenses aren't properly saved and disinfected, common eye infections, scarring, or even blindness, can arise.

observe the endorsed Lens-sporting time table

maximum eye medical doctors recommend that customers put on contact lenses for only some hours a day at some stage in the first few days. Even if you are wearing coloured contacts cosmetically, you ought to try out lenses for best a quick period before everything to make sure your eyes do now not emerge as overly angry.

It’s normal for eyes to feel slightly itchy or teary whilst you first put lenses in, however this need to enhance with put on. If eyes become red or painful, or your vision is foggy or cloudy, the lenses should be eliminated immediately. If the problem maintains, return to your eye medical doctor to evaluate the problem.

Care and maintenance of coloured Contacts

The care and use of coloured contacts is similar to for regular contact lenses. primary touch lens hygiene recommendations include:

    usually wash and rinse your fingers with a mild soap earlier than coping with lenses.

    smooth and rinse lenses with, and handiest with, an accepted sterile solution after taking them out and earlier than setting them in. Don’t use tap or maybe bottled water because they aren’t sterile and have been linked to severe bacterial eye infections.

    hold fingernails brief and clean to keep away from scratching your lenses.

    ensure your lens case is continually smooth.

    look into lenses for any foreign debris, tears, or harm before putting.

    follow cosmetics after placing lenses.

    Don’t put on smooth lenses when swimming.

    The most effective eye drops which can appropriately be used with smooth touch lenses are re-wetting drops that your eye doctor recommends.

Even if you don’t wear your coloured lenses on a regular basis, you continue to need to clean and location them in new answer each month. And remember to disinfect the lenses 24 hours earlier than sporting them.

How a lot Do colored Contacts cost?

The cost of coloured contacts relies upon on some factors, beginning with in which you purchase them, both out of your eye doctor or on internet that request a prescription earlier than you could make a purchase. price also varies according to the logo, how often the lenses want to get replaced (which can range from day by day to as soon as a month), and whether or not the lenses are coloured simplest or corrective, too.

Lenses which can be a primary, unmarried coloration are often less expensive than the ones ones with a sophisticated mix of shades to provide a vivid effect or a more natural appearance whilst overlaying up darkish irises. In fashionable, fees start at round $10 for a disposable pair; for 2-week disposables, that would add as much as $260 in line with 12 months; for month-to-month disposables, it would be towards $a hundred and twenty in line with 12 months.

the bottom line is that in case you are properly geared up for the lenses and comply with the simple care instructions, a a laugh, new look may be yours in a count of mins.