7 ms·

This article describes way too much OCD and wasted time. Here's my solution: * Buy 4x pairs cheapish glasses from Zenni. * Beat the crap out of them.

This article describes way too much OCD and wasted time. Here's my solution: * Buy 4x pairs cheapish glasses from Zenni. * Beat the crap out of them. * Replace as needed.

chmod775 4y ago
A good chunk of people require glasses that need to be custom-made. Once you also add amenities like photochromic lenses, it quickly adds up.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Yeah, I spend £300+ per pair on not having coke bottle thick glasses that are thin and light, and made out of polycarb.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    At least in the US that would be much cheaper: I can get high index (1.74) lenses for +$75: https://www.zennioptical.com/glasses-lenses https://www.zennioptical.com/glasses-lenses (so the overall glasses are ~$100)
    - tecleandor 4y ago
      I have a Zenni pair, I think they are 1.74 and around -6 correction in each eye. They are really cheap compared to other places, but they have very high chromatic aberration on the sides and I don't thing they are perfectly centered. I think it's something that's more noticeable when you need relatively high power lenses.
      - hammyhavoc 4y ago
        This is what I suspected would be the case. You absolutely do get what you pay for when it comes to optics, but equally, you can over-pay for utter rubbish. If you've got the vocabulary (which you do) to describe and understand what to look for, you can't go wrong.
      - adzm 4y ago
        It's good to have a high quality pair from a local shop so you have something to compare Zenni or other online shops to. YMMV of course, but I've had good experiences with Zenni, and only had one pair out of dozens for my family that had issues (seemed to be uncentered or had the PD incorrect), and that was over 5 years ago. It's nice being able to grab a cheap pair of glasses for activities where there is a high probability of them getting damaged or lost, and having a backup pair handy. The reduced mental load of not having to worry is worth it!
        sbierwagen 4y ago
        >so you have something to compare Zenni or other online shops to That's for sure. I bought a pair from 38dollarglasses.com and skipped the antireflective coating option. As it turns out, if you've worn glasses with AR coatings all your life, plain lenses are really, really surprisingly annoying.
      - superkuh 4y ago
        Yep. Once your lenses get above -6 diopter or so it starts to become a serious concern. By -10 diopter it's the driving choice in lens material and design. At -10.5, -11 I always get relatively low refractive index (~1.5) CR-39 based lenses because it's Abbe number is 60. This means I can still read, say, street signs or flanking computer monitors out of the corner of my eye despite the light going through literally >1 cm of material.
  - justusthane 4y ago
    Paying more can get you thinner lenses? This is of interest to me as I do have coke bottle-thick glasses.
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      Yes, absolutely. All depends on your prescription and sizes though. Most decent optical labs operate on a sliding scale, going thinner and thinner, but costing more and more. Can get quite expensive (relatively), but if you're going to absolutely baby your glasses, and use something like Zeiss single-use lens wipes, yes I think it's absolutely justifiable for something you're going to use all day, every day for several years. About 12 years ago, I switched to rimless with carbon fibre arms to try and get the weight down as the option to go as thin as I'd like just wasn't there yet, and I was still stuck with traditional glass, so the weight was a concern for me, and my glasses were forever slipping down my nose (ugh). Maybe 4 years ago I switched over to hingeless titanium frames (almost wire-thin) with rimless lenses that are incredibly thin and light, and made out of polycarb. Not got my prescription info to hand, but it's a world of difference what's available now versus a decade ago. They're so thin and light now that I frequently forget that I'm wearing them, and can even fall asleep in them! Oops! They stay stuck on my nose too, I never need to push my glasses up my nose. I thought pursuing thinner and lighter would be an exercise in vanity, but I can honestly say it's significantly improved my quality of life.
    - Groxx 4y ago
      Mine vary from "too thick for almost any frames" to "looks like a normal pair of glasses until you look through them" depending on cost. Mine are somewhere around 1/3rd as thick on the edge as cheaper glass. Look for "high (refractive) index" lenses. It bends light further, so you need less material / less angular difference to get the same effect.
      - justusthane 4y ago
        Interesting, thanks! I figured the thickness was just a function of physics and couldn't be changed, but I wasn't aware of the difference in refractive index.
  - INTPenis 4y ago
    Mine are around 800 GBP just to keep them a bit thinner towards the middle with some special cut. Including frames, that's just the total price I remember spending the last couple of times. Haven't changed them for 8 years now and they're 100% scratches, they lost some protective layer a long time ago from going into the sea with them. One half is glued together. I'm just too lazy to replace them.
- bravetraveler 4y ago
  I'm one of those people but I also keep a similarly crude technique - simple microfiber that I replace regularly The article mentions washing them, I have never tried this or nothing to back it up, but I suspect that may be where the problem lies. Just replace the cloth. They cost pennies. They even go as far as to put them back in bags and such. I don't bother and have never noticed an excess of grease, dust, or anything they do. Mine is just replaced every now and then sitting openly on my desk It's at the point where I wonder if doing less is more. It certainly seems obsessive People may say microscratches, yada yada. It's so inconsequential that my eyes go bad before the lenses do due to my treatment.
- jefftk 4y ago
  > A good chunk of people require glasses that need to be custom-made. Zenni makes their glasses to order; what do you mean?
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    Even with Zenni my eyeglasses cost over $100. At Costco they cost $300, and at most other places they cost $600. I used to always go with Costco, but last year I tried Zenni. The frames are definitely flimsier than any others I've had, which I've heard is generally the case for their wire-frame options—I'm sure their heavy plastic frames are more sturdy, but that's not my style. But the lenses seem as good as usual. Except they polished the edges of the lens instead of leaving them frosted, which creates distracting reflections under certain light (with an Rx of around -9/-10 my lenses are 7-8 mm thick). Despite all that I'll probably stick with Zenni in future. I wash my glasses with a drop of palmolive dish soap and warm water, then blow any water drops off the lenses. An oelophilic coating (available with Zenni) makes this easy, because the water beads up and almost rolls off.
    - sgt 4y ago
      7-8mm thick?! That's insane. I am pretty sure you can get thinner lenses by using a different index. It will be more expensive but definitely worth it. My Rx is -8.5 and my lenses are reasonably thin.
      - frosted-flakes 4y ago
        I can definitely get thinner lenses using a higher-index material, but I selected this lens material specifically because it has a higher Abbe number and thus has less chromatic aberrations. The thickness doesn't bother me, but chromatic aberrations do, a lot. I cannot tolerate the excessive colour fringing high-index lenses have, and while contact lenses don't have this problem I dislike those even more. I have lenses with an optical index of 1.61, which have an Abbe number of 41. In comparison, basic polycarbonate has Abbe 30 (horrible), high-index 1.67 has Abbe 32, and high-index 1.74 has Abbe 33. The best is CR-39 (index 1.5) with Abbe 59, but that will result in an absurdly thick lens, and I'm not sure it's even available in such a strong prescription.
throwaway123x2 4y ago
Yup, this is my new go to. I don't even bother with the insurance reimbursement any more.
soneca 4y ago
That doesn’t solve the problem that after a few days of use my glasses are dirty.
- mmh0000 4y ago
  Hench, the "beat the crap out of them" step. Wipe them on my shirt or any nearby rag as needed.
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    I don't know how people can clean their glasses on their clothing. I've only ever managed to make them more dirty and harder to see through. It always feels like a delicate act to get my lenses cleaner even with a microfiber lense cloth.
    - approxim8ion 4y ago
      Random articles of clothing tend to interact with my glasses like "oh, you have a smudge here? let me spread that smudge all over the surface for you. poof. everything is uniformly cloudy now."
ryantgtg 4y ago
I think it comes across as OCD because the author is logging everything they do. But the gist is basically “buy a 10 pack of cloths and wipe your glasses.” That’s what I do. And I shake the cloth beforehand to get sand from my pocket off of it. I do exactly four shakes, plus one extra swoosh that technically can’t be categorized as a shake due to its fluidity rating of 95 on the Holloway Motion Scale.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Just seeing “I clean my glasses” (before the title was corrected), I thought: gee it’s about time I place that Zenni order to replace my favorite pair that broke a few months back. Went ahead and ordered two just to have a backup, for all of $30. Granted I do clean my glasses (soap and water after each shower while they’re steamed up, gently towel dry). And I’m not much for disposable goods, these will last me years. But in the same spirit, I also like that Zenni accepts my expired prescription. My vision hasn’t changed enough to warrant another trip to the optometrist, so why waste the money, or my time, or theirs?
effingwewt 4y ago
I quite literally just got my first pair of glasses (bi-focals, no less!) yesterday, at the age of 41. This whole article and thread has been super helpful, but I have to say thanks so much for the Zenni tip! I was on that site all of 5 minutes before rushing to make an account. The pages are super easy to read and informative, they tell me instantly whether the frames can go with bifocals and whatnot. It even helped search by face type and let me do a virtual try-on. In person places here all seemed hell-bent on upselling me, seemed to be bothered by my questions, and the prices were outrageous! So now I can buy several cheap pairs, see which I like and then buy several copies to have stored for when I inevitably break my first pair. I almost never say this these days but holy shit was I impressed all around! Reading what people do for clean glasses (and as a person with OCD who sometimes gets infuriatingly distracted by the little shapes on my eyeball, much less dirty/scratched lenses), I was already not looking forward to needing these things.
- mmh0000 4y ago
  I've worn glasses most of my life. Back in my 20s, after I got my first good job, I paid for the $500-super-duper-fancy glasses. And, I can say they were higher quality than the $30 Zenni pair but not better enough to justify a >1000% markup. As someone else said further down, Zenni glasses have more chromatic abrasion; I've noticed this too. However, constantly babysitting glasses and worrying about scratching/breaking them is not worth the effort for slightly improved image quality at the far sides. With that being said, I do pay for quality sunglasses. In my experience, Zenni sunglasses are lacking.
  - effingwewt 4y ago
    I can definitely appreciate paying more for good ones, but for my first few pairs I feel it would make it more of a hassle to babysit some expensive ones. For sure once I've found a pair I like and are comfortable I will get a nice pair or two. I was looking into transition lenses so I'm not swapping my sunglasses for regular glasses. Quite a bit pricier but worth it, I hope. I've also seen some lenses that are supposed to help with glare from having an astigmatism and that would be a Godsend, especially at night. So I didn't want to spend $800+ for trial frames and lenses and whatnot. This whole thread has made me feel so much better about the process, and the timing could not have been better!
Aulig 4y ago
I order my glasses on Aliexpress even. From as little as $2 to $30 (for the most special stuff like photochromic lenses). Lenses are not expensive. They're just pieces of plastic, just like the frame.
deepspace 4y ago
> Replace as needed So here's the thing- I do exactly the same thing. Buy cheap classes. Use a kitchen paper towel or whatever is handy to clean them. But I have never had to replace a pair because of damage. Every few years, my prescription changes enough to warrant replacement, and then I go and order another set of glasses from Zenni, and they always last until the next time, no matter how badly I treat them.

This article describes way too much OCD and wasted time. Here's my solution: * Buy 4x pairs cheapish glasses from Zenni. * Beat the crap out of them. * Replace as needed.

chmod775 4y ago

A good chunk of people require glasses that need to be custom-made. Once you also add amenities like photochromic lenses, it quickly adds up.

hammyhavoc 4y ago
Yeah, I spend £300+ per pair on not having coke bottle thick glasses that are thin and light, and made out of polycarb.
- jefftk 4y ago
  At least in the US that would be much cheaper: I can get high index (1.74) lenses for +$75: https://www.zennioptical.com/glasses-lenses https://www.zennioptical.com/glasses-lenses (so the overall glasses are ~$100)
  - tecleandor 4y ago
    I have a Zenni pair, I think they are 1.74 and around -6 correction in each eye. They are really cheap compared to other places, but they have very high chromatic aberration on the sides and I don't thing they are perfectly centered. I think it's something that's more noticeable when you need relatively high power lenses.
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      This is what I suspected would be the case. You absolutely do get what you pay for when it comes to optics, but equally, you can over-pay for utter rubbish. If you've got the vocabulary (which you do) to describe and understand what to look for, you can't go wrong.
    - adzm 4y ago
      It's good to have a high quality pair from a local shop so you have something to compare Zenni or other online shops to. YMMV of course, but I've had good experiences with Zenni, and only had one pair out of dozens for my family that had issues (seemed to be uncentered or had the PD incorrect), and that was over 5 years ago. It's nice being able to grab a cheap pair of glasses for activities where there is a high probability of them getting damaged or lost, and having a backup pair handy. The reduced mental load of not having to worry is worth it!
      - sbierwagen 4y ago
        >so you have something to compare Zenni or other online shops to That's for sure. I bought a pair from 38dollarglasses.com and skipped the antireflective coating option. As it turns out, if you've worn glasses with AR coatings all your life, plain lenses are really, really surprisingly annoying.
    - superkuh 4y ago
      Yep. Once your lenses get above -6 diopter or so it starts to become a serious concern. By -10 diopter it's the driving choice in lens material and design. At -10.5, -11 I always get relatively low refractive index (~1.5) CR-39 based lenses because it's Abbe number is 60. This means I can still read, say, street signs or flanking computer monitors out of the corner of my eye despite the light going through literally >1 cm of material.
- justusthane 4y ago
  Paying more can get you thinner lenses? This is of interest to me as I do have coke bottle-thick glasses.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    Yes, absolutely. All depends on your prescription and sizes though. Most decent optical labs operate on a sliding scale, going thinner and thinner, but costing more and more. Can get quite expensive (relatively), but if you're going to absolutely baby your glasses, and use something like Zeiss single-use lens wipes, yes I think it's absolutely justifiable for something you're going to use all day, every day for several years. About 12 years ago, I switched to rimless with carbon fibre arms to try and get the weight down as the option to go as thin as I'd like just wasn't there yet, and I was still stuck with traditional glass, so the weight was a concern for me, and my glasses were forever slipping down my nose (ugh). Maybe 4 years ago I switched over to hingeless titanium frames (almost wire-thin) with rimless lenses that are incredibly thin and light, and made out of polycarb. Not got my prescription info to hand, but it's a world of difference what's available now versus a decade ago. They're so thin and light now that I frequently forget that I'm wearing them, and can even fall asleep in them! Oops! They stay stuck on my nose too, I never need to push my glasses up my nose. I thought pursuing thinner and lighter would be an exercise in vanity, but I can honestly say it's significantly improved my quality of life.
  - Groxx 4y ago
    Mine vary from "too thick for almost any frames" to "looks like a normal pair of glasses until you look through them" depending on cost. Mine are somewhere around 1/3rd as thick on the edge as cheaper glass. Look for "high (refractive) index" lenses. It bends light further, so you need less material / less angular difference to get the same effect.
    - justusthane 4y ago
      Interesting, thanks! I figured the thickness was just a function of physics and couldn't be changed, but I wasn't aware of the difference in refractive index.
- INTPenis 4y ago
  Mine are around 800 GBP just to keep them a bit thinner towards the middle with some special cut. Including frames, that's just the total price I remember spending the last couple of times. Haven't changed them for 8 years now and they're 100% scratches, they lost some protective layer a long time ago from going into the sea with them. One half is glued together. I'm just too lazy to replace them.
bravetraveler 4y ago
I'm one of those people but I also keep a similarly crude technique - simple microfiber that I replace regularly The article mentions washing them, I have never tried this or nothing to back it up, but I suspect that may be where the problem lies. Just replace the cloth. They cost pennies. They even go as far as to put them back in bags and such. I don't bother and have never noticed an excess of grease, dust, or anything they do. Mine is just replaced every now and then sitting openly on my desk It's at the point where I wonder if doing less is more. It certainly seems obsessive People may say microscratches, yada yada. It's so inconsequential that my eyes go bad before the lenses do due to my treatment.
jefftk 4y ago
> A good chunk of people require glasses that need to be custom-made. Zenni makes their glasses to order; what do you mean?
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  Even with Zenni my eyeglasses cost over $100. At Costco they cost $300, and at most other places they cost $600. I used to always go with Costco, but last year I tried Zenni. The frames are definitely flimsier than any others I've had, which I've heard is generally the case for their wire-frame options—I'm sure their heavy plastic frames are more sturdy, but that's not my style. But the lenses seem as good as usual. Except they polished the edges of the lens instead of leaving them frosted, which creates distracting reflections under certain light (with an Rx of around -9/-10 my lenses are 7-8 mm thick). Despite all that I'll probably stick with Zenni in future. I wash my glasses with a drop of palmolive dish soap and warm water, then blow any water drops off the lenses. An oelophilic coating (available with Zenni) makes this easy, because the water beads up and almost rolls off.
  - sgt 4y ago
    7-8mm thick?! That's insane. I am pretty sure you can get thinner lenses by using a different index. It will be more expensive but definitely worth it. My Rx is -8.5 and my lenses are reasonably thin.
    - frosted-flakes 4y ago
      I can definitely get thinner lenses using a higher-index material, but I selected this lens material specifically because it has a higher Abbe number and thus has less chromatic aberrations. The thickness doesn't bother me, but chromatic aberrations do, a lot. I cannot tolerate the excessive colour fringing high-index lenses have, and while contact lenses don't have this problem I dislike those even more. I have lenses with an optical index of 1.61, which have an Abbe number of 41. In comparison, basic polycarbonate has Abbe 30 (horrible), high-index 1.67 has Abbe 32, and high-index 1.74 has Abbe 33. The best is CR-39 (index 1.5) with Abbe 59, but that will result in an absurdly thick lens, and I'm not sure it's even available in such a strong prescription.

throwaway123x2 4y ago

Yup, this is my new go to. I don't even bother with the insurance reimbursement any more.

soneca 4y ago

That doesn’t solve the problem that after a few days of use my glasses are dirty.

mmh0000 4y ago
Hench, the "beat the crap out of them" step. Wipe them on my shirt or any nearby rag as needed.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  I don't know how people can clean their glasses on their clothing. I've only ever managed to make them more dirty and harder to see through. It always feels like a delicate act to get my lenses cleaner even with a microfiber lense cloth.
  - approxim8ion 4y ago
    Random articles of clothing tend to interact with my glasses like "oh, you have a smudge here? let me spread that smudge all over the surface for you. poof. everything is uniformly cloudy now."

ryantgtg 4y ago

I think it comes across as OCD because the author is logging everything they do. But the gist is basically “buy a 10 pack of cloths and wipe your glasses.” That’s what I do. And I shake the cloth beforehand to get sand from my pocket off of it. I do exactly four shakes, plus one extra swoosh that technically can’t be categorized as a shake due to its fluidity rating of 95 on the Holloway Motion Scale.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

Just seeing “I clean my glasses” (before the title was corrected), I thought: gee it’s about time I place that Zenni order to replace my favorite pair that broke a few months back. Went ahead and ordered two just to have a backup, for all of $30. Granted I do clean my glasses (soap and water after each shower while they’re steamed up, gently towel dry). And I’m not much for disposable goods, these will last me years. But in the same spirit, I also like that Zenni accepts my expired prescription. My vision hasn’t changed enough to warrant another trip to the optometrist, so why waste the money, or my time, or theirs?

effingwewt 4y ago

I quite literally just got my first pair of glasses (bi-focals, no less!) yesterday, at the age of 41. This whole article and thread has been super helpful, but I have to say thanks so much for the Zenni tip! I was on that site all of 5 minutes before rushing to make an account. The pages are super easy to read and informative, they tell me instantly whether the frames can go with bifocals and whatnot. It even helped search by face type and let me do a virtual try-on. In person places here all seemed hell-bent on upselling me, seemed to be bothered by my questions, and the prices were outrageous! So now I can buy several cheap pairs, see which I like and then buy several copies to have stored for when I inevitably break my first pair. I almost never say this these days but holy shit was I impressed all around! Reading what people do for clean glasses (and as a person with OCD who sometimes gets infuriatingly distracted by the little shapes on my eyeball, much less dirty/scratched lenses), I was already not looking forward to needing these things.

mmh0000 4y ago
I've worn glasses most of my life. Back in my 20s, after I got my first good job, I paid for the $500-super-duper-fancy glasses. And, I can say they were higher quality than the $30 Zenni pair but not better enough to justify a >1000% markup. As someone else said further down, Zenni glasses have more chromatic abrasion; I've noticed this too. However, constantly babysitting glasses and worrying about scratching/breaking them is not worth the effort for slightly improved image quality at the far sides. With that being said, I do pay for quality sunglasses. In my experience, Zenni sunglasses are lacking.
- effingwewt 4y ago
  I can definitely appreciate paying more for good ones, but for my first few pairs I feel it would make it more of a hassle to babysit some expensive ones. For sure once I've found a pair I like and are comfortable I will get a nice pair or two. I was looking into transition lenses so I'm not swapping my sunglasses for regular glasses. Quite a bit pricier but worth it, I hope. I've also seen some lenses that are supposed to help with glare from having an astigmatism and that would be a Godsend, especially at night. So I didn't want to spend $800+ for trial frames and lenses and whatnot. This whole thread has made me feel so much better about the process, and the timing could not have been better!

Aulig 4y ago

I order my glasses on Aliexpress even. From as little as $2 to $30 (for the most special stuff like photochromic lenses). Lenses are not expensive. They're just pieces of plastic, just like the frame.

deepspace 4y ago

> Replace as needed So here's the thing- I do exactly the same thing. Buy cheap classes. Use a kitchen paper towel or whatever is handy to clean them. But I have never had to replace a pair because of damage. Every few years, my prescription changes enough to warrant replacement, and then I go and order another set of glasses from Zenni, and they always last until the next time, no matter how badly I treat them.