Gordaen’s Blog

Update (23Jun08): Added high resolution comparison photo at the end of this post.

Previous I used Acuvue Oasys lenses and I ended up with extremely red eyes. Even though I eventually stumbled on “Clear Care,” a solution that helped a lot (see my blog post about it), I have become frustrated at times with the Oasys lenses. They’re probably the most comfortable lenses I have ever used when they are cooperating. When they aren’t, they might as well be sticky sandpaper.

Needless to say, when it came time to order more contacts, I opted not to go with Oasys again. Instead, I went back to Acuvue 2 lenses, which I previously had for years without problems. The Acuvue 2 lenses are also cheaper than Oasys, so I started looking at the ones with color; they were more expensive than the ones without, but I thought it might be nice to try something new.

I quickly found out that colored lenses are marketed much more toward females. I also found out that all the sites selling them offer some unrealistic guess as to how they would affect eye color, which was clearly created on a computer. Even the official site is rather lacking, unless you find eyes the size of your mouse cursor helpful. I thought, “What better place than a blog to look at real results,” and I was mistaken. I looked through a few dozen posts and found that nearly all were regurgitating press releases, trying to get business for a particular store, or were real people simply considering the lenses. For all those interested, I’ve taken a photo while wearing one Oasys lens (not colored) and one Acuvue 2 Colours lens.

Since I have rather blue eyes, I decided to go with one of the “enhancing” colors. The enhancing colors are mostly transparent, so they modify the real color of your eyes; the opaque lenses cover the colored portion of your eye (the iris) completely. The enhancing lenses are only good for people who have relatively lightly colored eyes; since mine are a fairly dark blue, I was unsure of how much the enhancing lenses would do, but I didn’t want the significant change of the opaque lenses. I opted for green enhancing lenses, since blue and aqua (the only other enhancement choices) would probably not be really noticeable.

I am pleased with the results. It’s worth noting that the photo I took used automatic white balance plus a flash bounced off the ceiling to try to create the most accurate colors. The only editing I did was cropping, resizing, and bringing the two eyes together (the two eyes are from the same photo so that lighting conditions were as identical as possible). The color of both eyes is actually a little bit more intense than the photos show, but I wanted to avoid adjusting hue or saturation in order to keep the photo as fair as possible.

The amount that the colored lenses actually affect vision is infinitesimal. In a very bright room wearing one colored lens and one transparent lens, I can switch back and forth between eyes and only see the slightest hint of difference. It’s definitely not something worth being concerned about.