Contact Lenses Eyeglasses

Well it’s that time of year again, Halloween! So while everyone else is stressing out about their perfect Halloween costume you can beat them to the punch with an awesome pair of Halloween contact lenses. When it comes to finding the perfect pair of special effects lenses, another name for Halloween contact lenses, the best resource is online because you can quickly browse through the dozens of different styles and colours. Here’s a promotional video from Coastal Contacts which shows some of their most popular Halloween contacts:

The best part is these Halloween contact lenses come in plain lenses but you can also get them in your prescription or RX as well which is great; so you don’t require vision problems in order to rock out a pair of wild contact lenses for Halloween, but if you do have vision problems well then they got you covered!

Halloween is really the one night of the year you can wear literally anything, but you might as well put some effort into it and order ahead of time for your special pair of Halloween contacts, you’ll definitely get a lot of interesting looks from your friends and it’s an awesome opening line at the bar if you really want to use it. My favourite pair is probably the Goliath pure light green style, they’re truly scary and crazy!

Decorative and special effects lenses are rapidly increasing in popularity.  People who were unhappy with their regular eye color can now simply pop in a different colored lens and be instantly transformed into someone else for an evening or weekend, and that person will often gain a good bit of confidence with the transformation.  It’s not uncommon for some people to have several different pairs of decorative or special effects lenses so they can change eye color to match different outfits for different occasions.

Special effects lenses are used in conjunction with Halloween and costume parties and in theater productions all year long.  Some special effects lenses are the piece that makes a costume complete - like a cat’s eye.

All too often though, someone will buy a special effects lens from an unreliable source to save time and money and end up suffering with a painful eye problem because of it.

It’s true that decorative special effects contact lenses come in both prescription strengths as well as in zero-powered strengths so that people who don’t have vision problems can comfortably wear them - this, however, does not meant that you don’t have to be careful and take appropriate precautions before wearing them.

There’s a popular misconception that just because the contact lenses aren’t prescription strength that they are safe to be worn by anyone at any time without any risk to the wearer.  Special effects contact lenses can, in reality, cause many eye problems, but there are some steps that someone who wants to wear them can take to ensure that they will be as safe as possible during the time that have the decorative contact lenses on.

What to do to be Safe

Before you sit down at your computer and order a pair of special effects lenses from some overseas store on the internet or run out and get a pair from a vending machine at a costume shop - you should know that these practices are likely to land you at the Optometrist with a nasty eye infection.

Your best bet to get a comfortable, high quality pair of contact lenses that will fit you properly is to schedule an appointment with a licensed eye care professional for an exam.  Your eye exam will tell you for certain if it will be safe for you to wear lenses.  If your exam shows that wearing contacts is safe for you, you’ll likely be able to get fitted and purchase the lenses that you want right at the office.  This will ensure that you get the best quality product from someone who is supposed to be selling it.  Even zero powered decorative contact lenses must be distributed through a licensed outlet, just because they aren’t designed to correct a vision problem doesn’t mean that anyone who wants to sell them is allowed to sell them.

If you already wear contacts regularly, you should still ask your regular eye care professional what their opinion of you wearing special effects lenses is.  If you haven’t had an eye exam in a while, they may want to see you to make sure the decorative lenses that you chooses will be available in your prescription so as to not cause any problems.

If you decide that wearing special effects lenses is for you and you are cleared to do so by a licensed professional, be sure to follow the instructions for wearing and caring for your lenses.  Just like wearing regular contact lenses, you shouldn’t wear them to bed, in the ocean or a pool and you should never swap lenses with anyone - even if they have the same prescription as you.

Even the slightest miss-step in following these instructions could lead to a serious eye problem - a problem much worse than not liking your current eye color.

In recent years, there have been many innovations in the types of special effects lenses that are used by the theatrical industry to transform the eyes of their actors.  Special effect lenses are used to create eye appearances that cannot be obtained in any other way and because the eyes are considered to be the windows to the soul, having dramatic eyes on the actors in the movie can pull the entire look of the character together in a way that is incomparable.  Because of the growing popularity of these types of lenses, some people that are not in the theatrical industry have chosen to purchase and wear these lenses as a fashion statement.

One of the most popular types of special effects lenses on the market today are the ones that are individually hand painted by artists to create the appearance that the purchaser desires.  These lenses are made out of some of the softest plastic available for contact lenses and the designs for the lenses are hand-painted by some of the leading artists in the industry, making each set of lenses a unique creation.  These hand-painted lenses are much more highly prized that the theatrical lenses that are mass produced by machinery in a factory.

Hand-painted special effects lenses can be purchased as either standard lenses that are used only to change the appearance of the eyes or prescription lenses that provide vision correction as well as altering the appearance of the eyes.  To obtain the prescription lenses, the person will first need to see an optometrist for an eye examination to be sure that the prescription lenses will allow them to see properly.  Having an incorrect prescription for the lenses could can damage to the eyes and prevent the person from seeing correctly while the lenses are in.

Many of the artists that hand-paint the theatrical special effects lenses are able to create virtually any design that the person can imagine.  Purchasers can email or fax their design to the company that creates the special effects lenses and receive a reply of whether or not the design is possible within a matter of days.  After the lenses have been painted in the design that the purchaser desires, the lenses are carefully packed in a sterile solution and shipped to the purchaser using one of the main package delivery services in the country.

These hand-painted special effects lenses can last for a number of years as long as they are cared for properly.  The lenses can be cleaned and disinfected with regular contact lens cleaning solutions and stored in typical contact lens cases without damaging the lenses.  It is not recommended for individuals to share a pair of contact lenses, even if they are not prescription lenses, because diseases could be transferred by the lenses from one person to another.  As special effects lenses become more and more popular with members of the general population as well as individuals in the theatrical industry, hand-painted special effects lenses will continue to make an appearance at theaters near you.