Archive for March, 2009

Theatrical & Crazy Contact Lenses – Halloween Contact Lenses

Theatrical or Halloween contact lenses will be the perfect finishing touch for your Halloween costume or a theatrical event – or they can be something you wear just for fun.

While colored contact lenses are generally thought of as a cosmetic accessory to make your eyes prettier (bright blue, emerald green, that deep soulful brown), there’s a whole range of contact lenses that are designed just for fun.

Scroll to the Bottom for More Great Scary Styles
Generally referred to as theatrical contacts, crazy or special fx contact lenses, or Halloween contact lenses, they offer all sorts of wild special effects that will have everyone that sees you asking “Where’d you get those eyes???”

You don’t have to wear corrective lenses in order to wear theatricals – but you do need a prescription. Because they’re worn in the eye, theatrical contact lenses are considered to be medical devices, and you must present a valid prescription in order to buy a pair. It’s also important to treat them as you would ‘real’ contact lenses.

They’ll need to be cleaned and disinfected between wear, and should never be lent out to someone else. But as long as you follow safety and medical precautions, they’re as safe as any colored or clear contact lens.

The two major brands of theatrical lenses are WildEyes from CIBAVision and Crazy Eyes from Coopervision, but there are many other brands on the market as well. The most popular lens styles in each of the companies’ lines are a variation of cat eyes – yellow lenses with a vertical black pupil slit.

Second on the list? Red vampire eyes come in second with both manufacturers. Other popular styles include stars and stripes, official NFL team logs and fire – yellow flames on a red background and glow in the dark contact lenses. Not surprisingly, both companies also offer plain black and plain white lenses, and variations of pinwheels and spirals on different colored backgrounds.

Other popular crazy contacts include:

cat eye contact lenses
red contact lenses
glow in the dark lenses
vampire contact lenses
mirrored contacts
black lenses

Doctors advise that you avoid any costume store that will sell you a pair of theatrical contact lenses without a prescription. Aside from non-prescription sales being illegal in every state, the lenses could scratch or otherwise harm your eyes. If you’d like to sport some of the wildest, craziest eye styles, start with a visit to your eye care professional to be properly fitted for contact lenses.

More Great Halloween Contact Lens Styles

Colored Contact Lenses

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Have you ever wished that you could change the color of your eyes? Now you can, with colored contact lenses. Contacts aren’t just for people who need their sight correcting. Colored contact lenses are also available with no sight correction – these are called Plano lenses.

As the words of the song say “don’t it make your brown eyes blue’, Well if you always wished that your brown eyes were blue or indeed if you have ever dreamed of having Liz Taylor’s violet eyes, or envisioned yourself with eyes of sparkling emerald; now, thanks to the magic of colored or tinted contact lenses, you can have eyes of virtually any color that you want – you can even have a different color every day and for even the very popular black contact lenses.

Looking for crazy contact lenses? Then head on over to our theatrical contact lens page.

Show your true colors with Freshlook Colorblends colored contact lenses

Colored contacts have been used in the theater and in certain professions for decades to change or intensify eye colors. And while colored lenses have been available to the general public with a prescription for quite some time, the cost was prohibitive for most. Often, a person who opted for colored contact lenses was choosing them as their only pair of corrective lenses.

The advent of inexpensive disposable contact lenses has made colored contact lenses available to the mainstream population as a viable choice for once-in-a-while wear. In fact, many of the most popular brands of soft lenses are made with no prescription strength whatsoever – strictly as an enhancement to eye color.

Colored or tinted lenses from major manufacturers are available in standard eye colors, including bare tints that will deepen and enhance the eye’s natural color. They’re best suited for people with light-colored eyes who just want to add a little sparkle. If you want to change your eyes from brown to blue or green, you’ll need to opt for a stronger tint, but those are available, too.

Change The Way People See You!

Blue eyes are the most desired eye colour, followed by green. But changing the color of your eyes doesn’t just change how you look. It appears that people associate eye colors with different personality traits.

A contact lens company in England carried out a survey of over 3,000 men and women aged 18 – 24. They were shown photographs of people and asked to rate them. What they didn’t know was that many of the people in the photographs had changed the color of their eyes with contact lenses. The results were intriguing.

People with blue eyes were thought of as firstly flirtatious and secondly, sexy.
People with brown or hazel eyes were considered to be affectionate and kind.
Green eyed people were thought to be the most creative, mysterious and intriguing.
People with grey eyes were considered the most intelligent and also the most shy.

So bear this in mind when choosing your colored contacts!

How Do Colored Contact Lenses Work?

Most contact lenses have a slight tint, so that you can see them in their cleaning solution and find them easily if you drop them. It’s called a visibility tint and is very faint so it doesn’t change your eye color at all.

Colored contacts that change the color of your eye use many different colored dots on the lens. This mimics the natural pattern of an iris (the colored part of your eye) so that the color isn’t just flat. Some lenses use a combination of three differently colored iris patterns to give an entirely natural overall look. In some brands, you can choose your own two colour combinations for a custom made look!

The middle part of the lens which covers the pupil is left clear so that your vision is not affected in any way.

Enhance Your Own Eye Color

If you’re quite happy with your own eye color but would just like to brighten it, lenses are available which feature pearlescent effects. These add sparkle and shine to any color of eye.

How Do I Get Some?

If you’re not a current contact lens wearer, you need to make an appointment with your nearest eye care professional for a contact lens fitting. This involves taking simple measurements of the shape of your eyes so that any lenses that you buy fit your eye properly. It only takes a few minutes and doesn’t hurt. Nothing touches your eye.

You may wish for him/her to provide the colored lenses for you, or you can take your prescription and buy the lenses over the internet. Even if you don’t need sight correction, you will need to have your eyes measured.

Once you have your prescription you can then hop online and shop in the comfort of your own home. Its the easiest way to get the best deal on your contact lenses.

Your Eyes Are Precious! – Safety issues associated with colored contacts

Eye professionals caution, though, that colored contact lenses are not just another fashion or cosmetic accessory. They require proper fitting, even if you don’t need prescriptive lenses, and you’ll have to go back for measurements again after you get your lenses to be sure that they’re properly sized. In addition, it’s vital to remember that they are a medical appliance that fits in your eye. NEVER lend them to friends or borrow a friend’s colored or theatrical contact lenses. That’s an almost sure prescription for spreading infection.

Because of those cautions, most eyewear professionals recommend that children should be in their mid-teens before being fitted for color lenses, or any other contact lenses. If you’ve got a yen for green eyes and yours are gray, check with your eye care professional to see if colored contact lenses are an option for you.

Colored contact lenses used to be classed as cosmetic items and that is why they were available without prescription. It is still possible to buy Plano lenses over the internet and in specialty shops without a prescription but it’s now illegal in America and unacceptable to reputable sellers worldwide.

Even the sites that do still sell without a prescription have a disclaimer tucked away in their small print. It usually says something like ‘All sales are under the understanding that the customer is responsible and holds a valid contact lens prescription.” You may do – but these sites are purely ‘Add To Basket’ and have no facility for ordering different strengths or sizes!

Colored lenses have now been classified as medical items in an effort to ensure safe regulations – so if you do choose to buy without a prescription, be aware that it is at your own risk.

There really is no need to risk comfort and safety – as so much is available. Shop around.

How Do I Choose A Color That’s Right For Me?

To get a natural look, the color that you choose should be based on your own natural eye color, the color of your hair and your skin tone. If you need help choosing, visit an eye care professional for advice.

Of course, you may wish to choose a color that looks startling and dramatic, like violet or very bright green or blue. It all depends on what sort of look you are going for.

What Else Do You Need To Know?

Very dark brown eyes can have their color changed with specially designed opaque lenses – in all colors.
If your eyes are very light, colored lenses can brighten or deepen your natural color. Or you can change it altogether!
If you have astigmatism, you can still wear colored lenses – look for colored torics.
You can even get colored bifocal contacts.
You can try before you buy – see an eye care professional in your area.
You can choose from disposable or non-disposable colored lenses. The choice depends on how often you are going to wear them – full time, or just for a night out.
If you choose non-disposable, you will need to care for them just like ordinary contacts. So add cleaning solution to your budget.
The color of the lenses doesn’t fade.

Biomedics Contact Lenses

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Biomedics contact lenses produced by a division of CooperVision known as Ocular Sciences, use an advanced light focusing system to provide sharper, clearer vision at any prescription strength.

One of the challenges that contact lens manufacturers face is the difficulty of correcting aberrations in the spherical surface of the lenses as well as in the human eye itself. These aberrations can prevent incoming light from being clearly focused on a single point, causing the images that contact lens wearers see to be slightly blurry or indistinct.

Biomedics lenses have met this challenge with their aspheric lens, which outperforms other manufacturers in creating sharp, clearly focused images in clinical studies. No matter how weak or strong your vision prescription is, it can be improved with Biomedics contact lenses.

Marketed under a variety of different names, including Ultraflex, Sofmed, Polysoft, and Perspecta, Biomedics contact lenses are a very popular brand. They are known for their stability and their ease of use as well as for their clarity. Furthermore, Biomedics has patented a thinner edge design, which makes their lenses more comfortable to wear all day long.

Another breakthrough for the Biomedics contact lenses is the development of the Biomedics XC line. These lenses are the first two-week disposable lenses to use PC technology.

PC technology incorporates molecules of phosphorylcholine, a water-attracting substance that naturally occurs in human cell membranes, into the lens composition.

The XC line of Biomedics lenses stay unusually moist and comfortable to wear throughout their two-week lifetime. PC technology helps them resist dirt build-up to remain as crystal clear at the end of the two-week period as they were when they were first worn.

Biomedics contact lenses are also available for people with astigmatism and in the Biomedics 1 Day occular line

Astigmatism: Understanding and Correcting Your Astigmatism

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Many people are told by their eye doctors that they have an eye condition known as astigmatism, without fully understanding what this means. The actual details of an astigmatism are quite complicated and interesting and people would generally take better care of their eyes if they knew exactly what this diagnosis means in relation to their ability to see now and in the future.

Astigmatism is actually a faulty type of vision that is caused by an uneven curvature or shape in the refractive surfaces of the eye. The areas of the eye that are usually involved in the cause of an astigmatism are the cornea and the lens, with the cornea being the most common cause of faulty vision. Because of the uneven curvature of either the cornea or the lens, light rays are unable to reach a single focal point behind the retina. What this means is that some of the light rays focus on the retina while others focus in front of or even behind it.

Although many experts believe that astigmatism is a congenital condition, disease or injury to the eye are other causes. Astigmatism is not a condition that occurs alone; it is likely to occur with either nearsightedness and farsightedness, which can make getting a prescription for glasses or contact lenses more involved. To help those with an astigmatism to focus, the optical dispenser will need to ensure that the prescription glasses take into account the astigmatism as well as needing to modify the spherical lenses that typically correct other vision problems. Astigmatism can be corrected with both contact lenses and glasses, though most experts agree that it is best corrected with contact lenses. Astigmatism is like other vision problems, it occurs in varying degrees from very mild to quite severe.

In recent years advances have been made in the treatment of astigmatism, as LASIK procedures are now available to correct faulty vision. These procedures work to even out the refractive surfaces of the eye so that the patient can see well without the use of glasses or contacts. These procedures are becoming more advanced all the time, making them much more affordable and realistic for astigmatism patients everywhere.

A Guide to Theatrical Contact Lenses

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What Styles Are Available?

Theatrical contact lenses are a fun fashion statement. A new crazy eye color can completely change your look, and give you the vivid, sultry, or exotic eyes that you’ve been dreaming of.

If you’d love to get a bit more attention – or be the center of it, then theatrical contact lenses will definitely make an impact.

Special effect lenses are hugely popular but not everyone wants to look like a zombie or Darth Maul! Crazy lenses completely change the look of your eye but are much more patterned in style. If you want to make an impact – you certainly will!

How are these special lenses made?

The movie producer approaches the contact lens company with a character outline. They will discuss what is required and what is possible. ‘Normal’ sized lenses or full-eye can be used. Once they have decided on the look, the lenses are often hand painted!

The actor’s eyes are measured for a perfect fit. A prescription is included in the theatrical lenses, if necessary. They are cared for just like ordinary lenses and can last from 6-12 months.

The same set of lenses can’t be shared by different actors. It’s unhygienic and against the law in some countries.

Theatrical contact lenses are also manufactured for non-theatrical use and can include custom made designs. So anyone with a valid prescription can purchase theatrical contacts.

What are sclera lenses?

Ordinary colored contact lenses just fit over the colored part of your eye, called the iris. Many special effects ones do too.

Scleral lenses, on the other hand, are the sort that completely change your whole eye and are often used in movies. They are consequently much bigger than ‘normal’ lenses. If these are the type that you desire, there are a few points to consider:

Not everyone is able to wear scleral lenses. They range in size from 20mm to 22mm in diameter.
Because of their size, scleral lenses are not easy to put in – or take out! If you are really obsessed with having some, be prepared to practice and use lots…and lots…of eye drops!
Scleral lenses shouldn’t be worn for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time.

They may hamper your vision as they have a small, fixed pupil – a tiny clear area for you to see through. Because the lenses are so big, they can’t move with your eyes. This can lead to a ‘haze’ in your vision, especially if the lights are low. Avoid wearing them in dim light or take extra care!

No-vision theatrical lenses

With the majority of special effects contact lenses, you are able to see as normal. But there are a few which you won’t be able to see through at all. These are always advertised as ‘no-vision’ or ‘blind’. Actors who wear these in movies have a full-time sighted person to guide them at all times!

If you love the way these look but don’t relish the thought of not being able to see, a compromise is to buy one ‘no-vision’ and a matching (or non matching) one, with vision. That way, you get a great effect and you can still find your way home!

How about Stars and Stripes, red and white striped Candy Canes, black and white spirals, yellow and black radioactive – or even mirrored? Or you could go for a blue background with a black star, a yellow smiley face or a spiders web! Or if you want to stare dreamily into someone’s eyes, how about a star and moon design? If your appetite is whetted, do a search for crazy contacts and you’ll be amazed!

Do I need a prescription?

If you are intending to use colored lenses for Halloween or another special event and not for vision correction, do you still need to visit an eye doctor and receive a prescription for them? The answer is absolutely yes.

The reason why prescriptions are necessary with any kind of contacts is that in order to be safe, contact lenses must be specially fitted for each eye. The size and curvature of each eye varies dramatically. Even your left and right eyes do not necessarily take the same prescription.

The curvature of your eye is very important for proper vision. Consider that one of the ways of correcting vision problems is to use a carefully fitted contact lens to change the shape of your eye, and you can see how dangerous it could be to wear contact lenses that do not fit properly. Poorly fitting contacts, whether colored or clear, are capable of making you permanently blind.

In order to ensure that your contact lenses fit you properly, your eye doctor must carefully measure the exact dimensions of each of your eyes and write a prescription for those measurements.

Can I share my theatrical contacts with my friends?

People who intend to use contacts for purely cosmetic purposes might be tempted to share their lenses with friends, the same way they might share lipstick or nail polish. This is an extremely bad idea, however.

Not only do your friends have different eye measurements, leading to the above problems, but it is also possible to transmit dangerous bacteria from eye to eye.

How Do I Buy Theatrical lenses?

Crazy contact lenses are easy to buy online. If you already wear lenses then you’ll have a prescription to order with. If you’ve lost it and it’s under a year old, your eye care professional will issue you a duplicate free of charge.

If you’ve never worn lenses you will need to get your eyes properly measured by a professional. This applies even if your vision is perfect and you just want the lenses for a cosmetic effect. Getting your eyes measured only takes a few minutes and is pain-free as nothing touches your eye.

You can still buy non sight-correcting lenses over the internet without a prescription but be aware that this is now illegal is America. Since November 2005, all contact lenses in the US have now been classified as medical items, in an effort to keep people’s eyes safe.

If you wish to buy non-prescription lenses online, be aware that they may not fit comfortably. One size doesn’t fit all! It’s recommended that you always buy from a site that requires a prescription. It’s a little extra hassle but aren’t your eyes worth it?

In order to use theatrical contacts safely, never buy them from an unauthorized source, always be sure to have a current prescription, and be sure to always use only your own contact lenses. Your eyes will thank you for it and you will still have a fun Halloween!

How Do Patterned Lenses Stay The Right Way Up?

If you’re buying lenses with a cat’s eye design, or a design that needs to stay a certain way up for the design to look right – make sure that they are stabilized or weighted.

If the lens is weighted, the bottom edge is very slightly thicker than the top edge and acts like a ballast. This is not visible and it is just enough to prevent the lens from rotating on your eye.

How Do I Look After My Theatrical Lenses?

If you are buying disposable lenses, check how many wears the seller recommends. If they are single wear, then you just throw them away after you’ve worn them once. If they are designed for more than one wear, which is more usual with crazy lenses, then you will need to buy a storage pot and solution for them. Soft contact lenses have a high water content which is what makes them so comfortable to wear. It also means that they will shrivel up if not stored properly in solution.

Check if the seller recommends any particular solution for the care of your theatrical lenses.

How to Buy Contact Lenses Online – Checklist

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Things to consider when buying contact lenses online

Ever thought about buying contact lenses online but have been too afraid to try? Or maybe you’ve been thinking about it but thought that it was just too hard? Well think no more as buying contacts online is a simple and easy process and could save you money.

Online contact lens retailers have an advantage over regular stores as they don’t have the high costs of rent and other costs associated with a regular store. This gives them the opportunity to offer their products at reduced prices.

How to Buy Contact Lenses Online

Before you are ready to buy online, ensure you have an up-to-date prescription. The prescription should have details of your doctor’s name and phone number.

Compare different retailers for the best price but don’t purchase solely on price. Take into consideration the following before making your decision:

1. Does the company have phone support? If you have a problem you may wish to talk to someone verbally.

2. Does the company have a returns policy?

3. How long before the order is shipped?

4. Do they have a secure website for purchasing with your credit card?

5. Check the shipping charges. Some online retailers may offer free shipping on large orders, others may not. Factor this cost into the total charge when making your decision.