When we think of sunglasses, majority of the time we think, fashion, style, do I look good in these? A lot of the time, people forgot to ask themselves – well do these glasses serve their intended purpose?
It’s very easy to fall into the trap of buying cheap sunglasses thinking, oh yeah these look cool, and they’re only ten pounds, what a bargain. But do those ten-pound sunglasses protect you from UV rays?
What’s the difference between cheap sunglasses and expensive sunglasses?
The price of sunglasses tends to play a role in the final decision of buying. Why are some expensive and others cheap?
The answer is simple! You are paying for the quality of the lens.
The cheap ones are cheap because they generally do not have any UV protection and the quality of your vision looking through the tinted lens is inferior.
The real question is, could the cheap sunglasses do more damage than good?
When you put a dark filter in front of your eyes, your pupil dilates, which essentially lets more UV rays into the eye. So, if you’re wearing a cheap pair of sunglasses with no UV protection, that has a poor-quality tint, you could be doing more harm to your eyes.
The various tints used in sunglasses
Let’s talk about tints for a second.
There are a whole family of tints ranging from different colours to different strengths. The most common tints colours are brown/black/grey. Other colours that are often used are green and rose, but you can choose from an array of colours which your optician can provide.
Tints also come in different strengths.
The amount of light the tint absorbs defines how dark or how light the tint is. For example: a standard sunglass tint absorbs 85% of light whereas a very light tint, that is light enough for you to use them even at night-time only absorbs 18% of light.
Between the different quality of the tint and colours, they will all result in different types of vision.
Quality sunglasses don’t just protect your eyes from UV rays
Ideally, you would get a polarized lens. Not only does this block UV and aids in different light levels, it also reduces the glare.
Glare is everywhere! It comes from the reflection of light bouncing off different surfaces.
The sun doesn’t need to be splitting the stones for there to be glare. In certain countries there is a lot of cloudy weather and the glare becomes worse on days like that.
People have this perception of only wearing sunglasses when the sun decides to drop in for a holiday for maybe a few weeks in the year. But what about the remaining 45 odd weeks where the weather might be overcast, cloudy, raining, snowing? And all them weather types can sometimes come in the one day.
Why not wear the sunglasses on those days? Are there no UV rays then? Yes, there is!
The beauty about having a good quality polarized lens is that you can wear them all year round and still have excellent clarity, visual comfort and UV protection, without the glare.
You might just get more than you bargained for by buying cheap sunglasses
UV rays are very harmful to the eye. They can cause sunburn of the eye, cancer of the eyelids, cataracts and macular degeneration.
The next time you think of buying a cheap pair of sunglasses, just remember that you get what you pay for.
Make the switch to a more expensive pair instead of buying off the street. I promise you; you won’t regret spending the money when you know the quality you are paying for and you can have confidence that they are doing what they are supposed to!
