Caring for Your Fashion and Designer Sunglasses
Take Care of those Fragile Sunglasses!
Sunglasses available in today’s market offer highly specialized and technologically advanced forms of eye protection. With the increase in the quality of sunglasses has come an increase in their associated price. Some consumers choose to purchase cheaper sunglasses that offer inferior eye protection, are less comfortable and are constructed to last a dramatically shorter amount of time to avoid wasting money. Purchasing sunglasses of higher quality does require responsible care to protect one’s investment, but the return is definitely worth the added effort. Here are a few tips on how to care for sunglasses in order to prolong their use and maintain their beneficial and enjoyable characteristics.
The most common damage to sunglasses occurs at times that they are not on one’s face. Scratches to lenses and coatings can create visual annoyances and render a pair of sunglasses less effective. To avoid scratches, it is important that sunglasses be stored in some type of case when they are not on one’s face. A hard case will provide superior protection from both scratches and deforming compression when sunglasses are being conveniently carried in a purse or backpack. A soft case is an alternative covering that will not provide protection against the crushing weight of a bag’s contents, but it is a convenient way to shield one’s sunglasses from other damage resulting from contact with keys, coins or countless abrasive objects.
Cleaning one’s sunglasses can also inadvertently damage them if an inappropriate cloth is used. Textile advancement has recently popularized the microfiber cloth as a suitable tool for cleaning the delicate surfaces of coated glass. Microfiber clothes are an excellent tool for removing dirt from sunglasses because the individual fibers are designed to lift dust and debris rather than simply pushing the particles as the natural fibers of cotton do. However, a microfiber cloth will eventually become laden with dirt and dust and can be less effective so be sure to purchase a new cloth periodically.
Polarized lenses are used in a wide variety of sunglasses because of their dramatic glare-reduction capabilities. Many people do not realize that the effect of a polarized lens is achieved by sandwiching two lenses together. This is important because contact with water can actually damage polarized lenses by intruding between the two parts of the lens. Since most casual non-sports polarized sunglasses can be permanently damaged, be sure to avoid water if one’s sunglasses are not specifically designed for aquatic environments.
Most sunglasses have an assortment of small screws and hinges. When cleaning sunglasses, it is always a good idea to check the tightness of the small hardware used to hold everything in place. It is much easier to simply tighten a screw that has come loose then to find a replacement for a lost part since sunglasses do not follow a standardized construction. For sunglasses that are not made of thick plastic, it may also be necessary to replace nose pieces and ear traction pads periodically. Most retail optical stores can provide suitable replacement parts.
