Chiropractic Healing Works

3 Lens Options for Your New Pair of Glasses

20 October 2015 by Charlie Berry

When it comes to choosing options for your glasses, there are numerous things that might spring to your mind. Of course, choosing the frame is the fun part. You're able to express yourself and find exactly what's right in terms of comfort for you. However, there is the portion that is largely glossed over many a times: choosing lenses that are right for you. Although choosing lenses might seem intuitively boring, the fact of the matter is that there is a smorgasbord of choices at your disposal regarding lens choices.

Which lenses are right for you? Hopefully, this article can help you come to that decision. Here are a few of your choices when it comes to picking out lenses for your glasses.

Glass Lenses

In the early days of vision correction headgear, all lenses were constructed out of glass. Although that isn't the case any longer, glass lenses still remain a wildly popular choice when it comes to the material from which you wish your lenses to be constructed. Glass lenses can be a bit expensive, but that is because they are quite difficult and pricey to construct. However, glass lenses tend to offer the highest quality optics available.

Another downside of glass lenses, sadly, is the fact that they tend to be quite heavy and they tend to break much more easily than other materials available to you. If you're going for a classic aesthetic with premium optics and you don't mind paying a bit more than other forms of lenses, then glass lenses might be the choice for you.

Plastic Lenses

Plastic lenses are quite a bit newer than glass lenses. First developed in the 1940s, plastic lenses made quite a dent on the scene of eye wear by offering an alternative to glass lenses that was quite a bit light and, in the estimation of many who chose plastic over glass lenses, much more comfortable, to boot.

Made out of a polymer and dubbed the CR-39, or Columbia Resin No. 39, plastic lenses quickly became a popular alternative to the glass lenses that had dominated the market for years upon years. Plastic lenses are roughly half the weight of glass lenses and tend to be much more resilient, meaning you won't have to replace them nearly as often and they don't tend to break, unlike glass lenses. Plastic lenses are also significantly cheaper than their plastic brethren.

Polycarbonate Lenses

Polycarbonate material was first introduced in the early 1970s exclusively for use in aerospace, for things like space shuttled windshields. Eventually, lenses started to be created that were made out of polycarbonate. Over the years and by the mid 1980s, polycarbonate lenses became an extremely popular form of lenses for use in everyday use in eye wear.

Polycarbonate was originally developed to be a state of the art replacement for plastic. It is extremely resilient. Take into consideration that polycarbonate was a type of material that was originally developed as a face plate and lens gear for Air Force pilots to wear and a type of material used in the construction of bullet proof "glass" that was used in banks in the late 1960s. It is also a good alternative to plastic lenses, as they tend to be even more resilient, although a bit more expensive. Polycarbonate lenses have become increasingly popular over the decades, although they don't supply state of the art optics.

When it comes to choosing lenses for your glasses, you have a wide array of choices from which to choose. There are a number of factors you should take into consideration, including the material and how much you're willing to pay. For more insight on your options, contact companies like Spectacle Shoppe, Inc.

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