A RAINBOW OF COLORED CONTACT LENSES

With today’s innovations and technology, changing your eye color is as easy as popping in a new pair of contact lenses. Colored Contact Lenses used to be primarily for theatrical purposes, but now, many people change their eye color to match the outfit of the day.

Is it really that easy? Yes!

Colored contact lenses today come in more varieties from more companies than ever before. Brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Bausch & Lomb, and Acuvue contacts all come in a variety of colors. Some companies such as Ciba Vision even have entire lines such as Fresh Look contacts that use a wide range of colors and designs to enhance any skin tone or hair color.

The ABC’s of Colored Contact Lenses

Colored Contact Lenses come in a few basic varieties as follows:

• Visibility tints
• Enhancement tints
• Opaque colors

Visibility tints really are not colored contact lenses in the traditional sense. They are simply lightly tinted lenses that make the contacts easier to see, but do not affect your eye color in any way.

Enhancement tints are used in colored contact lenses where you want to change your eye color slightly rather than dramatically. They are designed to intensify your existing color. For example, people with light blue eyes will often get enhancement tints that make their eyes appear to be a deeper blue or add shades of green.

Opaque colored contact lenses are for those looking to completely change the color of their eyes. With an opaque contact lens, the center of the lens remains clear so that it does not interfere with vision, but the rest of the contact is colored so that your natural eye color will be completely invisible behind the lens. The variety of opaque lenses is truly staggering. For example, just with the Fresh Look color contacts mentioned earlier, they have at least a dozen colors. Some of the most common are green, blue, brown, amethyst, gray, and honey. However, you will have to investigate all the possibilities based on your personal preferences.

If you want your eyes to be a particular color, they probably can be.

Colored Contact Lenses providing Special Vision Needs

Now some of you may have been reading through this article thinking that color contact lenses would be great, but that your vision needs cannot be met with contacts or color contacts. However, you might be wrong. With today’s evolving technology, the world of contact lenses is quickly developing as well. The unparalleled selection of color contact lenses today can help meet a variety of special vision needs.

One of the most exciting developments in recent years, has been that of bifocal contact lenses. For those people that would traditionally need to wear bifocals, they have developed different alternatives with contact lenses. Some people have lenses where part of the lens is devoted to distance vision and part for near sighted vision. This would obviously not work with opaque colored contact lenses, but could be an option with enhancement tints.

Another variation on the theme of bifocal contact lenses is that of monovision. People wear one lens for seeing things at a distance and one for seeing things nearby. The brain is smart enough to use whichever eye is viewing the clearer picture. This could work with either opaque or enhancement tinted colored contact lenses.

This is just one example. If you have a special vision need, it is probably worth seeing if there are colored contact lenses available that still allow you to see clearly.

For those of you who would love to change your eye color, but do not have any vision issues, there are also contacts available for you. Most companies offer non-prescription colored contacts known as plano lenses for those people who are interested in a little variety, but do not need the contacts for vision correction. You will still have to visit an eye doctor for fitting, but the option is definitely open.

Colored Contact Lenses also there as Special Effects Contact Lenses

Now for those who are looking for more than a slight change, the rainbow of colored contact lenses does not stop with mere colors. There are a number of Special Effects Contact Lenses out there that were originally used for movies or theatrical productions to create the strange creatures of horror films and eerie dramas.

Here is just a sampling of some of the range of special effects contact lenses available:

• Wild Eyes Designs
• Glow in the Dark contacts
• Halloween contacts
• Shamrock contacts
• NFL Team contacts
• Cat Eyed contacts

The list goes on and on and there are actually a few companies out there that are devoted solely to creating strange and weird effects for special effects contact lenses. Such odd colored contact lenses are the ones that can make an eye appear completely black or dead or hypnotic. Some of the effects are truly clear.

While you probably do not want to show up at work or school looking like a crazed monster, these special effects contacts can be greatly amusing for Halloween or costume parties or the occasional event. Some people get contacts to support their favorite team or to celebrate different holidays.

Choices and Convenience

Some of you that are considering colored contacts, particularly those who do not need them for vision correction, may be concerned about the inconvenience of wearing and caring for lenses. However, with the choices today, it has never been easier to pick the options that best suit your personality and lifestyle.

Some people prefer to take their contacts out every day. For those people there are a variety of contact lenses that allow you to dispose of them every day, or once every one to two weeks or once a month. This can avoid the hassles of extra cleaning, or in the case of daily disposable contacts, can avoid the need to store them at all.

For those that still think that changing your contact lenses daily is too much trouble, there are now options such as night and day contacts that allow wearers to put their contacts in and forget about them for the next month until it is time to switch to a new pair.

New technology is ever increasing the comfort of contact lenses with new varieties that keep the eyes moist and comfortable. Contacts such as the Night and Day ones also allow a much greater flow of oxygen to reach the eyes, which increases comfort as well as safety when wearing the lenses for such an extended period of time.

Safety of Colored Contact Lenses

If after reading our homepage, you cannot wait to go change your eye color, it is important to remember to visit your eye doctor first!

Whether they are for vision correction or not, colored contact lenses are prescription items. You need to be properly fitted for them, and the eye doctor needs to verify that you will not have any issues wearing contacts.

Because you are putting them in your eyes, it is vital that you make sure you have the proper colored contact lenses that will enhance and vary your appearance without damaging or impeding your eyesight.

With that final word of warning, I wish you well in your exciting journey to find the right colored contact lenses for you. With the rainbow of options available to you today, you should have fun exploring and experimenting. Enjoy!

About the Author

Kim Gradel is a regular writer on contact lenses and loves to help provide consumers with the information they need to make wise purchasing decisions, particularly when shopping for contact lenses and other vision care products.

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