How to Choose and Care for Your Coloured Contacts

Are you feeling the need for a change? Looking for something different?

Coloured contacts offer a great way to transform your appearance. They make it so easy to change your look! In fact, changing your eye colour to fit your style is far easier than dyeing your hair. And coloured contacts are more dramatic than changing your makeup.

However, contact lenses are still medical devices, and they should be treated with care. Thus before you experiment with them, there are a few things you need to know. That's where we come in! Read on to learn about the brands and colours that will suit you best, and how to care for your new lenses.

Popular Coloured Contact Brands

Coloured contact lenses come in a variety of shades and styles. Some lenses are subtle and designed to enhance the natural colour of your irises. Other lenses completely transform the colour of your eyes.

When browsing coloured contact lenses, look out for the terms “enhancement tint” and “opaque tint”. Enhancement tint lenses feature a translucent tint that enhances the natural colour of your eyes. The opaque tint lenses are non-transparent and can dramatically change your eye colour. So if you want to change your brown eyes to baby blue, then the opaque tint coloured contacts are what you need!

Our Favourites

There are many contact lens manufacturers out there. They each offer contact lenses with varying degrees of colour saturation. Here are a few of our favourites:

• Freshlook ColorBlends are popular daily wear contact lenses. By combining 3 shades of colour into 1, Freshlook Colorblends can alter even the darkest eyes. These lenses can be worn for up to two weeks, provided that they are cleaned and stored each night. The colours available include: Brown, Gemstone Green, Gray, Green, Honey, Pure Hazel, Sterling Gray, True Sapphire and Turquoise. There are also three new colours: Amethyst, Blue and Brilliant Blue.
• Freshlook also offers coloured lenses in the daily disposables category. Using the same 3 colours in 1 technology, Freshlook One-Day lenses are available in Blue, Gray, Green and Pure Hazel. These lenses can be conveniently discarded at the end of each day - so no cleaning!
• Johnson and Johnson’s 1 Day Acuvue Define contacts are another popular brand of coloured lenses. Featuring Lacreon Technology, 1 Day Acuvue Define has four styles to choose from: Natural, Define, Radiant and Vivid. Each style offers a different level of colour saturation from subtle Natural to extreme Vivid. One day lenses are a great choice if you either don’t wear lenses a lot, or you’re often on the go… or both. You can keep your style and not have to worry about cleaning or storing your contacts.
• Bausch and Lomb’s Naturelle Pureblack contact lenses are also daily disposables. These contacts fall into the “enhancement tint” category. Naturelle lenses feature a subtle colour pattern that intensifies the irises and makes your eyes appear larger. Bausch and Lomb lenses also feature micro encapsulation technology. Thus, your eyes are never in direct contact with the colour pattern. These Naturelle lenses come with HD optics to improve your vision in low light, while reducing halos, glares and blurs.

Avoid Non-Prescription Coloured Contacts

Once you have an idea about the brand and type of lenses you want, it’s time to get an eye exam. Some coloured contact lenses are available as plano lenses, which means they have no corrective power. But how can you be sure your vision is 20/20 without visiting your optometrist for an exam?

Contact lens retailers are required by law to obtain a prescription that is less than one year old from each of their customers. Even if your prescription is plano, you must provide the paperwork!

Your contact lens prescription also includes the precise measurements of the size and shape of your eyes. Wearing lenses that are the wrong prescription, or fit poorly in your eyes can cause long-term damage.

Contact lenses are medical devices that offer benefits to the wearers, but they also pose risks. Health Canada requires contact lenses to be licensed before being imported and sold in Canada. In 2016, Health Canada extended this regulation to decorative (also called cosmetic, coloured or fashion) lenses. Not only could a poor product damage your eyes, but buying from disreputable sellers could affect your consumer rights. Never take a chance with your eyes! Only buy your coloured contacts from reputable companies that obey the law.

Choosing Your Coloured Contacts

Now for the fun part! There are no hard and fast rules to choosing the colour of your contacts. You can choose lenses that complement your natural colouring, or you can experiment with diverse tones. You can go for a more vibrant look, or for one that is more natural.

Your closet is a great way to start the hunt for your best lens colour. Your favorite clothing items are a good indication about the colours that make you look your best! Be sure to pay special attention to those pieces that fetch you the most compliments. The eyes are the windows to your personality. So use your best wardrobe choices to guide your colour contact choices.

If you’re going for a natural look, then you also need to account for your skin tone and hair colour. If you have a warm skin tone with yellow or gold undertones you should avoid brightly coloured lenses. If your hair is yellow blonde or golden brown, then also avoid extremely coloured lenses. Instead, choose contacts in shades that complement your skin, like light brown, honey, hazel and green.

If your skin has cool tones, you can experiment with brighter colours. Whether your complexion is fair or dark, skin with blue undertones is more suited for intense colours like ice blue, violet, turquoise and plum.

Remember, you don’t have to take our suggestions as the law. Choose the contact lens colour that makes you happy and your heart sing a new melody! Express yourself!

Tips for Caring for Your New Coloured Contacts

Coloured contact lenses require the same level of care and attention as regular lenses. If your coloured lenses are reusable rather than disposable, you must clean them after every wear. As an added precaution, make sure to rinse your lenses before each wear.

You should exercise caution when cleaning your contact lenses. Remember, they’re fragile. To clean a lens, place it in the palm of your hand, and pour a bit of lens solution in your palm. Next, use the index finger of your opposite hand to gently rub the surface of the lens in a circular motion. This will remove any buildup of dirt or protein on the lens. Store your lenses overnight in a sterile contacts case filled with fresh lens cleaning solution.

It’s important to also clean your contacts case each day. Use your lens solution to disinfect your case. Leave the case to air-dry, face down, with the caps off, in a clean and low humidity area. That way, you’ll always have a sanitised case waiting for you at the end of each day.

More Tips!

Those are the basics. Now here are a few more tips for caring for your new coloured contacts:

• Always wash your hands before handling your coloured contacts! Dirty hands can introduce bacteria to your lenses, which can then infect your eyes. Never lapse on your contact lenses’ hygiene!
• When you wash your hands, only use unscented soap for sensitive skin. Any soap with perfume or oils in it can leave residue on your hands. This residue can contaminate your lenses and irritate your eyes.
• Use a clean, lint-free towel to dry your hands. Why the emphasis on lint-free? Any small particles of fabric or fluff can get trapped between your lens and your eye. This will give you discomfort - and you don’t want that.
• Never rinse your lenses in tap water. We repeat: Never rinse your lenses in tap water. Or any water for that matter. Water contains microorganisms and pollutants that can give you dangerous eye infections. Water also causes your lenses to dry out and warp out of shape. Only use your prescribed lens solution to clean and rinse your lenses.
• Never wash your face, take a shower, or swim with your coloured contacts. In fact, avoid all waterworks when you’re wearing your lenses. If you must swim in your lenses, wear waterproof goggles as well. Be sure to remove and clean your lenses immediately after each swim.
• Apply your makeup after you’ve put in your coloured lenses. This minimises the chance of you getting makeup under your contacts. At the end of each day, take your lenses out, clean them and store them before you remove your makeup.
• If you use hair spray or any other aerosol hair product, use it before you put in your contacts. These products can buildup on your lenses and irritate your eyes all day.
• We know that you love your coloured contacts and you want to wear them all the time. But, make sure that you don’t over-wear your contacts , as this could also irritate your eyes.
• Finally, take good care of your nails. A ragged nail edge can not only damage your contact lenses, but it also increases the risk that you will scratch your eyes by mistake.

Now you’ve done your homework, and you have the scoop on getting coloured lenses. Go ahead and buy the perfect coloured contacts for you! Your eyes can’t wait to meet them!