3. Gently rub the soapy water over the lenses. For some stubborn things (like sunscreen) in the edges I sometimes gently use a Q-tip.
4. Rinse under warm water. Gently rub with your fingers to agitate the soapy water and help rinse it off.
5. (This is the important step) Adjust the faucet’s flow to a low laminar flow and run the glasses through water, hitting the top of the glasses first and letting the water flow down and off the bottom of the lenses. It might take a couple passes but doing this will eliminate any water droplets on the lenses.
6. Use a clean towel to gently dry the frames. The lenses don’t need drying since the laminar flow eliminated all the water droplets on them.
- Wash with cold water. Warm or hot water might ruin the coating. (Our water comes supercooled right out of the tap in the winter,so in order to not have my hands instantly frozen into a solid block of ice I go for 15—20 degrees or so.)
- Use a drop of mild dish soap without ammonia.
- Dry them with a soft clean cloth (they use microfiber I think, I just use a random soft towel that doesn't give off any lint/dust)
Doesn't have to be more complicated than that. It takes 20 seconds and my glasses are as good as new.
My opticians have always given me a microfiber whenever I got a set of glasses made, and last time I went I asked for a spare as well. Now I have the habit of having one in my pocket at all times so I don't have to devolve back to using the bottom of my tshirt.
Yeah, but the fabric of my shirt seemed noticeably worse at cleaning my glasses, so I stopped using that completely. Having a microfiber on hand at all times is very helpful for that
Wash with cold water. Warm or hot water might ruin the coating.
This is why I worry about radiant heat from fires while camping or burning yard debris. Plastic lenses are usually opaque to IR and that means they're heating up even more than you might think.
I once ruined the coating of my glasses by sticking my head into a hot oven to check a disk I was baking.
The surface of the lens sort of blistered.
From then on I removed my glasses when checking on food in the oven... I also try not to stick my head so far in also.
For people with poor eyesight (like me!) plastic lenses are lighter and can have a higher refractive index, making them thinner than the equivalent glass lenses. Weight is the big thing though.
Can you even get glass lenses anymore? I don’t recall seeing it as an option the last time I ordered a pair but maybe since Zenni tends to focus on affordability they don’t bother offering the (presumably more expensive) option.
Heh, its funny, whenever I see a video of an American with glasses, they don't have a reflective coating. I guess its too expensive over there. I have glasses which have reflective coating and photochromic coating. They're also made of titanium. Very light, despite being -4 or so. My wife has even worse than -4, and she enjoys the same. They're a tad more expensive, yes, and eventually the coating goes bad which with proper usage can be postponed for years (e.g. wear real sunglasses on beach).
They might if you drop them hard enough, but I've dropped glass lenses numerous times and I've never had them shatter on me. Probably helps to have a sturdy frame with barrel hinges, too: https://shop.shuron.com/shop/sidewinder/
I asked my optician to please give me glass lenses and avoid the shenanigans with inferior materials, but they declined citing safety concerns with broken glass. Ah well.
There's absolutely nothing unsafe about glass lenses if you're a normal person and don't abuse them. They're actually superior to plastic in terms of longevity and durability. What I've found is that the tradeoff is durability vs. weight. Glass is heavier than plastic but if your glasses are well-fitted and adjusted, this is not a problem. Also, in terms of cleaning you can be a lot less careful with glass and they won't scratch. I had a pair of glasses with plastic lenses and my wife tried to "help" me by cleaning them with a paper towel when I wasn't around. The lenses got scratched up and unusable. Never again...it's glass lenses in Shuron frames for me!
I would rephrase that as: There's nothing dangerous about them until an accident happens. And that's why it's not worth it to me. I saw my dad's eye surgery from a glass-lenses incident years ago - he was lucky, it still was an awful experience. Should he have been wearing a pair of goggles while working in the yard? Sure. But I've forgotten that too!
Most eye 'glasses' are eye plastics. Plastic lenses are softer than cellulose = kleenex scratches them. There is no easy way to avoid scratching plastic apart from detergent rinsing and soft lens cloth pat drying. I buy true glass lenses, hardened so they break into splinters (I have never broken one) To clean, I wash with warm water and dish soap = they last for years and I need new ones due to eye aging before they ever get scratchy. A few others made this point as well.
Fun fact: if you're ever institutionalized for suicide watch, they confiscate your spectacles due to a perceived risk of being able to break them and cut yourself, even if your spectacles aren't made of glass.
Anyone who is into photography knows this is flat-out untrue. Aspherical lenses are a big deal in the high-end camera lens world. Canon, Nikon, Leica, Zeiss, etc. all have aspherical lenses.
I wear glasses and my glass lenses are made by Zeiss. My left eye has mild astigmatism and the glasses correct it perfectly. Each one is made from a single piece of glass that is ground to shape.
That you wear for prescription glasses? Unlikely. Glass cannot be shaped into aspheres without very expensive grinding and polishing techniques. Multiple glass shapes are typically molded together to make an aspheric lens. The challenge is that molding the lens this way decreases the Abbe number significantly, which is why it’s not used for prescription eye glasses. If you have astigmatism, your lenses are most likely a polymer of some sort. Check with your optometrist.
I've owned several pairs of aspherical lenses made of glass, ground by competent yet hardly exceptional shops. Only in the U.S. I found people uninterested in selling me glass lenses--exaggerated mimicry, "but they'll be so heavy!", etc.
Yeah, they are. If you only have say -2 its no big deal. I have -4 and with heavy glasses (I used to wear such) I get pain in top of my nose rather quickly.
The anti-reflective coating expands and contracts differently with heat than the plastic lens underneath. A big temperature difference will cause it to crack. So don't use ice cold water, use water that's at room temperature, which is usually what comes out of your cold tap.
> water that's at room temperature, which is usually what comes out of your cold tap.
Is that really your experience where you live? In mine, the cold tap is cold - once allowed to run through whatever's in the pipes in the building, since it's come from underground.
It depends on where you live and the time of year.
I've lived places where in the winter, the tap water is just a couple of degrees above freezing. I've lived in places where in the summer I've measured the tap water at over 90 degrees.
He must live somewhere that doesn't get to any real temperature extremes.
Yeah, I used to wash my glasses in hot water. I didn't notice an instant change, but it noticably degraded their quality after a while. Water straight from your cold tap is the way to go.
> Our water comes supercooled right out of the tap in the winter
I'm from a place that never really gets below freezing, so I have to ask. Is this serious? If so, that's fascinating. When you turn the tap on, does the water instantly turn to slush on the way out? Does it come out at full speed or sluggishly?
It is serious but in hyperbole. The water is probably near freezing, but not below. Frozen pipes are a big problem in cold regions, they expand and burst, so measures are taken to insulate and keep the pipes warm. Depending on the piping though, sometimes the only resort is to completely drain the pipes during winter and not have any running water for that part of the year. (Common in cottages rather than real homes)
I believe they were exaggerating a bit. Water pipes are typically buried deep enough in the ground that the water gets very cold but not frozen. The pressure in water lines isn't high enough to really drop the freezing point of the water to an appreciable amount.
I use a tall glass with tap water and some dish soap. Dunk them in while I shower, then remove, rinse off with cold water. Afterwards I could use a towel, but actually I tap them dry with a sheet of toilet paper. I THOUGHT that would leave small dust, but surprisingly, does not.
I use cheap, uncoated glasses though and replace them every 3-4 years anyways.
- Do not apply soap to the lenses. Soap is too thick. Apply it to your fingers and rub between fingers to dilute with a bit of water before applying to glasses.
- Use your fingertips as abrasive. Soap is there to dissolve any fats but your fingertips (if clean) are best material to remove anything from your glasses without scratching the surface.
- Few faucets give good laminar flow. I just blow over the glasses. If you do this right, your glass are not scratched and you have cleaned them well, all water will slide off easily.
- Don't ever use towels on either frames or glasses. Towels can easily scratch glass not to mention much softer frames.
I second this. Don’t use any kind of cloth. Just blow over your glasses a few times, droplets will disappear. Even finest cloth will leave scratches over time. Also it will reapply dirt and grease that naturally builds up as you use it
That's bad. You don't want to dry it, you want to remove the water BEFORE it has a chance to dry out.
If you just dry it out, the mineral residue from water will be left on your glasses.
More than that, mineral crystals are incredibly abrasive so next time you try to clean the glasses they will be abrading and destroying your perfect glass surface.
For starters, I have responded to a comment from a user, not to the submission.
And second, using distilled water to clean your glasses must be strong contender for least practical glasses cleaning technique.
Blow the water off
vs
Find that jug of distilled water (make sure there is one at work and at your parents in law), then rinse with it (you can do it, hold the jug in one hand and the glasses in the other, don't use all the water), then use the hair dryer on cold to dry your glasses.
--
If you need distilled water and hair dryer to do it the result will be permanently dirty glasses, not clean ones.
> Don't ever use towels on either frames or glasses.
Maybe because I get the non-scratch coating, but this has never been an issue for me. Have been doing it for twenty years without issue. Assuming lenses are replaced every several years, which they should be.
The scratches on the glass do not have to be visible. The surface just gets a tiny bit matte, reducing the contrast and also making cleaning a bit bigger problem.
As to the frames, except for the unavoidable wear and tear in places where it can't be avoided, my current main daily driver Tom Ford acetate glasses look as shiny as on the day I got them, 3 years ago.
My friend has similar frames and they look matte, after less than a year.
Titanium frame is my latest love iteration of my glasses. It makes them more light. I've found that's what I find annoying about glasses, the weight on my head. Not the peripheral. In fact, I've tried lenses various times, and never have been able to go with it. Too much discomfort.
I would like to add: the weight on my nose is more discomforting than grease on my glasses. I sometimes clean my glasses and I'm afterwards like wow, that was dirty. But did it really bother me? Not really. I rather do it for other people, cause it makes me look better, but such isn't a high prio for me (already 'married with children').
Agreed. This is the best way. Soap on fingers as you described above and laminar flow.
Other methods introduce too much unnecessary complication which don't make the lenses cleaner. Any kind of absorbent material has the potential of depositing tiny fibers or other specs on the lens surface. And air drying potentially leaves behind impurities the from water.
I basically do this, but carefully pat dry with either a kleenex tissue or a clean absorbent towel to get the few droplets that inevitably haven't slid off in the not-perfectly-laminar flow.
We have super hard water. Despite soaping to degrease the lenses, our water never just sheets off like soft or distilled water does on a really clean surface. It beads up and leaves deposits when droplets evaporate. So step 5 is problematic for me.
After the rinse, I set the glasses down on a paper towel - temple pieces extended as if I were going to put them on. The lens frames rest on the paper towel, their lower parts in contact with the towel.
I use canned air to gently drive droplets down front & back surfaces to the bottom of the lenses. They then generally wick away into the paper towel, or else evaporate at the lens/frame interface. No need for step 6. Takes about 30 sec, leaves no spots on the lenses after.
I clean my wife's glasses (it's unfair that she should get both bad eyes and all the extra work associated with it, so I do the parts of it I can).
This is the exact thing I do as well. I have also found that rinsing with hot water helps tiny droplets evaporate quickly without (for some reason? Clean water at home?) leaving drying stains.
My main concern is that the more effective soap may damage coatings. In practise, however, it seems that she has to change lenses often enough that damaged coating does not have time to become a big issue. (This is partially due to how pregnancy and breastfeeding changes the eyes -- we'll see how things go after this.)
Ultrasonic cleaners, with a bit of dishes soap in the water, are the most efficient/effective way (I uses to clean them with water and soap as well, in the past).
They are simple devices that lightly shake objects very quickly, in water. They work well with dirt that is soft (e.g. grease), and therefore not only for glasses, but also for teeth aligners and jewelry/small objects.
Some grease is still sticky, but generally speaking, I do a 10 minutes pass every day, and the eyeglasses have never been cleaner.
BE CAREFUL with coated lenses (in particular, cheap sunglasses there), as they will be destroyed (the coating/film will detach from the lens)!
I don't know the technical distinction, but there is a noticeable distinction in prcatice. I guess that "cheap coating" is made by gluing a film; I see this type of coating very often in budget or even not-so-budget sports (sun)glasses.
Cleaning this type of glasses in an unltrasonic cleaner will cause bubbles to form between the film and the lens.
I think the intention was (cheap (coated lenses esp. sunglasses)) though they wrote it as (coated lenses (esp. cheap sunglasses)).
I have a few uncoated lenses, such as semi-disposable safety goggles, and a few uncoated glass lenses of one sort or another, although I expect you didn't mean those.
> 5. (This is the important step) Adjust the faucet’s flow to a low laminar flow and run the glasses through water, hitting the top of the glasses first and letting the water flow down and off the bottom of the lenses. It might take a couple passes but doing this will eliminate any water droplets on the lenses.
This final step is also how soldiers get those perfect mirror finishes on their boots and belts!
I did it by using lots of polish, time, and a little (drops of) water. I don't remember holding my boots under a faucet, maybe I could have had an easier time if I'd have known back then. Some folks did use heat guns, but that always made the polish crack for me.
After you’ve water-bulled with the little drops of water how did you get the water off without leaving any streaks? This laminar flow approach collects them up and rolls them off as larger drops so the surface is left dry.
You can get water shedding coatings for lenses. Then you just have a few beads of water when you do this. You can either leave them there to dry or dab at them with a soft cloth like a tee-shirt.
Since I've started doing this I've actually had compliments from optometrists what good shape my lenses are in.
At the end of that sequence, I finish with a spray of deionized water (made using a resin filter specifically to make DI water), and a clean/dry microfiber wipe. DI water is an amazing all-around cleaner and leaves zero residue.
The best recommendation for it is remembering my chemistry teachers telling us that "water is the universal solvent". Well, filtering and removing all of the stuff previously dissolved in the water turns it into a very aggressive yet gentle solvent. It's great for cleaning surfaces and tools at the shop, windows at home, it makes glassware really shine, and of course, as a final step cleaning eyeglasses.
(I just use a kit & resin from CR Spotless, available online. No affiliation, hope it helps as a starting point)
I do something similar for the first 1-4 steps, only difference is I use cold water instead of warm or hot.
I don't know how true it is but I read in a few places where hot water and glasses don't mix well. It can mess with prescription lenses and potentially strip away extra coatings you have like auto-tint.
I know hot and warm are different but just to be safe I always go with cool.
It's too bad hot water is bad for lenses because it would be really convenient to be able to clean them while showering.
Avoid moisturizing soap in general when doing this, since they often have silicones, and that can leave a film. Dish soaps are less likely to have them, so it's a decent one to try blindly... or just read the label.
But yep, this is exactly what I do. Usually hand soap, but the stuff I get is just plain soap, no fragrance or moisturizer, so it rinses super easily. And when it's properly clean, the water leaves the surface dry and streak-free.
I just wanted to thank you for this advice. I just used your laminar flow idea and didn't even need to use my microfiber cloth at all, the lenses were totally clean!
Here's what I did:
1. First pass of laminar flow water from the faucet to remove any large debris.
2. Two sprays of lens cleaner on each side of each lens.
3. Rinse lenses with laminar flow water making sure to leave no droplets behind.
I do some optics design and prototyping for my day job. This is close enough to how I clean expensive optics, except that I would avoid a q tip unless absolutely necessary. The only thing I'd add is if you do need to dry something with a cloth, an old cotton undershirt that's been washed many times does a great job.
Also, I wash my windows at home with plain water and a squeegee.
This is what I do, usually once or twice a day. I seem to touch my face and glasses a lot, so dish soap is important as it removes the grease. Hand soap isn't as powerful and often has additives that will leave a film behind.
Between cleanings when I get a small smudge I go back to using my t-shirt, but I only clean the specific area that is dirty.
I do similar but use centrafugal forces to spin dry them almost dry with arm swings. Then I use toilet tissue dabbed to get the final few drops off (not wiped!). Toilet tissue can be scratchy so you might want an alternative but for me it's not doing much work and it's always at hand.
This is the best way. I do it as a general "reset", to really clean things and start fresh.
In between these sessions, I will use the little wipes. I find that paper they are made of is very similar to chem wipes. I keep the papers in a little box and use them for all sorts of minor tasks.
This is almost exactly what I do. After a lot of trial and error I found it works for me. The only thing I would add is to never use paper products to dry your Rx glasses or sunglasses if they have plastic lenses; the fibers in the paper will scratch the lenses.
This works for me. Dish soap is barely a drop that I use to spread. Also clean the frames occasionally with water. For 6, I use a fresh clean underwear instead of a clean towel. One less towel and the usual laundry cycle takes care of the rest.
I learned the dish soap method when I ... accidentally dropped them in dish water.
It is AWESOME.
It is amazing for sunglasses. Clarity is critical for driving, but they also seem to build up oil faster than normal glasses. Dawn makes them meticulously clean.
If you leave your sunglasses in the open in the car, it might be collecting the offgassing from the plastic - that same haze that accumulates on the inside of your windshield. I keep mine in a closed container and it seems to do just fine.
I don't use a towel to dry them, as any grit at all will fog the lenses. Instead, I just bang the edge of the glasses against my abdomen to knock the drops off.
They'll eventually fog, but it takes a lot longer.
I do something similar, but I tend to be less particular with using laminar flow, as ensuring that works reliably is difficult. I find I can simply blow on the lenses to drive any remaining droplets off of them.
I do almost the same thing, but I turn it to scalding hot once I’m done using my fingers so the lenses get hot so they dry faster. So far that hasn’t seemed to damage anything.
I do the same. The problem is at step 5: some faucets (at hotels and so on) are automatic (no touch, due to pandemic maybe). I don't have a solution for this yet.
The easiest solution I've found is to use a Zeiss lens wipe; at this stage the lens is already clean so you don't have to worry about pushing dirt around on the lens, and the alcohol on the wipe evaporates quickly and cleanly.
A better solution is to keep a clean microfiber lens cloth that never comes into contact with anything except freshly cleaned lenses to dry them. Unfortunately, for me it's tough to keep one that clean for very long.
A worse solution is just to use the relatively-clean inside of a t-shirt. All three methods have their place IMHO.
yep. no more microfiber whatever and no “lens cleaner”. i discovered this a long time ago and i think it’s hilarious that others use such care to clean theirs.
1. Get your glasses wet with warm water.
2. Apply dish soap to both lenses.
3. Gently rub the soapy water over the lenses. For some stubborn things (like sunscreen) in the edges I sometimes gently use a Q-tip.
4. Rinse under warm water. Gently rub with your fingers to agitate the soapy water and help rinse it off.
5. (This is the important step) Adjust the faucet’s flow to a low laminar flow and run the glasses through water, hitting the top of the glasses first and letting the water flow down and off the bottom of the lenses. It might take a couple passes but doing this will eliminate any water droplets on the lenses.
6. Use a clean towel to gently dry the frames. The lenses don’t need drying since the laminar flow eliminated all the water droplets on them.