Today, a little topic on ways to screw up perfectly good eyes. Or, “look what the kids are into”. Good times ahead!
Odds are that if you’re over 30 and living in a Western country, you haven’t even heard much about cosmetic contact lenses. You’re thinking right now, what, Jake. Nobody I know wears cosmetic contacts.
But if you are a 20 year old girl in a major city somewhere in Asia (though odds are 99% you aren’t), you very possibly own more than one pair. Cosmetic contact lenses seem to be all the rage among Asian girls. Besides looking a lot less attractive (to me at least) as intended, they’re also really not good news for long term eyeball health.
What are cosmetic contact lenses?
Generally, any contact lens with the primary function to change the appearance of the eye, rather than the focal plane, is a cosmetic contact lens.
In Western countries they’re more commonly novelty type items, something you’ll see around Halloween:
What better way to express “hey I need to look like an idiot”.
The basic problem with these is that they’re made in some backwater factory in China, to some backwater-Chinese-factory levels of specification. That’s to say, they’re about as wise to stick in your eye as those plastic covers you get on milk bottles.
Do it. come on. Totally safe.
There are zero requirements on manufacturing standards on those lenses. Doesn’t matter what the seller tells you. They’re tiny milk bottle seal things.
What makes cosmetic contact lenses dangerous?
Actual optical contact lenses (those intended to counter myopic eyesight) are designed to exacting specifications, with very specific material choices. You also need to be fitted for those contact lenses, since the size and curvature of your eyeball isn’t the same as everyone else.
And still you risk corneal thinning.
Those novelty contact lenses on the other hand are truly high ranking on the list of dumb things to do. Here’s an article from the BBC on the subject of cosmetic contact lenses.
I know. Boring. The BBC just can’t afford writers like you get here.
True though in their article is that sharing lenses like that is far more common, and also far less brilliant of an idea than a lot of other things you could do to try to look more attractive. Wearing a Jakeface mask for instance. The ladies will totally dig you!
But then it’s usually not guys who wear cosmetic contact lenses. If you’re lucky enough to be not an Asian girl, you’re not going to be inundated with ads telling you that you saucer-sized alien eyes to look cute.
No ladyboy jokes here, all right?
Seriously though, if you ever walk through any of the zillion night markets in Asian cities, you’ll find vendors of these colored cosmetic lenses all over the place. You have to have milky white skin, and gigantic saucer eyes, preferably in some entirely artificially shade of purple.
You thought I was kidding.
Hair extensions, nose jobs, jaw adjustments, and saucer eyes. That kittehs, the recipe for buhhteeh. And of course no health standards for distribution of these things, and besides nobody thinks about long term consequences.
It’s just going to get worse if we keep going. Google image search it yourself, if you want the really grotesque examples.
What if you just have to have cosmetic contact lenses?
Simple. Go to a proper optometrist, buy a proper brand name variant of these things. Make sure that they have specifications for sizing – always a good way to tell that you’re getting the real deal. They’re also not going to be nearly as cheap as the novelty option, and have instructions for care and disposal time frame.
All the big brands have them. Bausch & Lomb, colored contact lenses.
There we have it. File under things you never really needed to know.
Housekeeping: Lots of great e-mails from you guys. A bit backlogged in replying, and posting highlights here in the blog. Also thanks for the Twitter follows. And the resumes, a bit of weeding through those will take time. I’ll respond as I can. I’m also getting a bit into the academia side of things. Especially since I keep being told that I, Jake-not-academic, without titles, could never wind up in a proper journal and PubMed. Watch me, nay sayers. ;-) Other things too, I forget. Keep reading, and also right now go outside, take care of those eyes!
Cheers,
-Jake
