Your lenses are important, but do you know what they need to be effective?

Choosing glasses can be one of the most important and difficult decisions you can make. Finding the right colour, style and fit is essential as it can change your look. As a Dispensing Optician, I’ve seen people take barely a few minutes over choosing their new frame and I’ve seen people take hours. We can be quite indecisive as glasses are something that can really add to your personality, but we often forget about the lenses we put inside the frames.

Your lenses are by far the most important part of your glasses. They help you see clearly and provide a certain amount of protection for your eyes. We can add Antireflection, UV and Hard coatings to improve the lenses, the question you must ask is how do these help you?

Well allow me to answer.

Antireflection:

Lenses are essentially shaped pieces of plastic that are used to correct your vision. As a result, the light that travels through them causes a glare which can distract you as you go about your day to day business such as reading and night time driving. An antireflection coating removes this and not only make your glasses safer to use but also makes them look so much better.

With an Uncoated lens, on coming headlights while driving at night time would appear to be starry and spread out, which can be very distracting when you’re operating a vehicle. Furthermore, your own eyes would not be seen clearly by others, as the natural glare would cause too much reflection.

The Antireflection coating would not only remove the glare, making night time driving safer, the lenses would appear to be invisible, so that your eyes are seen clearly.

UV protection:

Ultra violet rays from the sun are the cause of such ocular problems as Cataracts, Macular Degeneration, Corneal sunburn and more. We need to do as much as we can to protect our eyes and keep them as healthy as possible.

Lenses will always come with a natural UV protection, but the added UV coating can improve this. It is probably the most important of the coatings as Ultra violet rays can cause so much damage. Though remember, the lenses in this case are a preventative measure. Some Issues such as Cataracts will eventually occur due to age, but this coating can help reduce the rate it progresses.

Hard Coating:

Also known as a scratch-resistance coating. This is what adds an extra layer of toughness to your lenses and helps reduce the amount of scratches that can appear. Bare in mind that this does not make them scratch proof – no lens is scratch proof…yet…

This coating is essential to add to the longevity of the lenses. Though bare in mind, prescriptions still have to be checked and updated at least every 2 years.

At Chatoo & Co LTD, we offer a wide range of lenses that come with these coatings and more. Come in to both of our London based Practices for more information about what we can do to make your glasses the best they can be.

Take care!