[HN Gopher] How I clean my glasses
___________________________________________________________________
How I clean my glasses
Author : ltratt
Score : 197 points
Date : 2022-07-13 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tratt.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (tratt.net)
| mynegation wrote:
| I switched to contact lenses (monthlies first and then to
| dailies) and I do not miss any of these cleaning rituals.
| dont__panic wrote:
| How long have you used contact lenses? I used contacts from
| 2005-2017 or so, eventually switched away because it was
| annoying when I couldn't just take a nap easily, my eyes dried
| out a lot when I use a computer all day for work, and contacts
| are not very bikepacking compatible. When I first switched to
| contacts, it was such a breath of fresh air, but I've been back
| to glasses for years now and have no desire to go back. My life
| seems a lot simpler now that I have a good pair of transitions
| and a good pair of indoor glasses.
| likpok wrote:
| There's a number of contact products that allow you to sleep
| in them. Mine do leave me feeling a little gummy in the
| morning but it generally fades shortly after waking up.
|
| A previous brand (the air optix?) I lived in for a month at a
| time and was fine though perhaps I just didn't care as much.
| mynegation wrote:
| Close to 10 years. I don't take naps but I feel your struggle
| - it is uncomfortable to wake up wearing lenses, for sure. My
| eyes do not get dry (I use BL Biotrue dailies FWIW), but
| individual physiology is definitely a factor. I do quite a
| bit of active stuff, like volleyball, bicycle, snorkeling and
| managing glasses in these settings is a hassle for me.
| yesbabyyes wrote:
| Not OP, but another data point. I have been wearing contacts
| since I was 16, in 1994, most of the time. I keep a pair of
| glasses and wear them occasionally (perhaps every couple
| month on average, or more rarely) for a few days or a week.
| First monthly lenses, then dailies for a long time. I got
| lazy and started to sleep with them for days/weeks, which is
| not to be recommended, but it's mostly worked fine. I've had
| an infection two or three times over the years.
|
| They do get sticky sometimes, and I really have to blink to
| get started in the morning, or late nights
|
| This summer I tried with contacts made to wear for up to a
| month without taking them out. When testing them out I
| learned I have also become astigmatic, which is a new
| experience; the contacts adjust in the eye to stay in the
| right angle, which makes mornings harder, as it takes a while
| for them to adjust. During daytime they mostly work well and
| I see much clearer now. However, I'm also getting older and
| these are now adjusted for seeing far, so for reading
| comfortably I'm going to need reading glasses/terminal
| glasses.
|
| My old glasses are scratched pretty badly and the various
| coatings have rubbed off in the middle, which is pretty
| annoying. I mostly wear them for giving my eyes some rest (I
| have recently rediscovered how nice it can be too just remove
| them and not see anything) and because I really like the
| frames (Shuron Ronsir). They also have great looking clipons
| making them my favorite sunglasses.
| shard wrote:
| I used contact lenses for many years, starting with RGPs when I
| was in high school and later switching to soft lenses. However,
| as I and my eyes have gotten old, I've found that wearing
| contacts for more than a few hours leads to eye pain, and
| switching to different brands or contacts with higher water
| content didn't really make a difference. So nowadays it's
| glasses-only for me.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| I wish I could do this but I really can't. The dailies dry out
| super fast, and sometimes fall out. And then they stick causing
| a weird lag when I move my eyes too fast. Maybe it's my eye
| shape but I wanted to love contacts and really couldn't make it
| work.
| mynegation wrote:
| Sorry about your experience! Looks like your lenses are
| pretty thick - probably you have large +- prescription? For
| me, my myopia is not very strong, so dealing with thinner
| lenses alleviates the problems your described.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Exact same experience. Amazing visual clarity, however
| considering how long I can work for in a day or multi-day
| period, dailies just aren't convenient.
| atkailash wrote:
| ama5322 wrote:
| Seems overkill. I use pure dish detergent under the tap directly
| with my fingers (you can feel the dirt, do not press against the
| lens). Dry with a new/clean paper towel by pressing (buffering?
| do not drag the paper across the lens). Dirt cheap, perfect
| result in seconds, can be done everywhere. Normal hand soap
| contains moisturizer, so this is not indicated (but generally
| works too although might leave stains).
|
| If your lens is being scratched by this try spending a bit more
| on better glass. There's no point in skimping on something you
| hold on your eyes the entire day. Mine always lasted more than 7
| years, and I only ever needed to change due to loss of acuity.
| ihateolives wrote:
| > If your lens is being scratched by this try spending a bit
| more on better glass. There's no point in skimping on something
| you hold on your eyes the entire day.
|
| Doesn't always work that way. I never skimp on glasses, atm I'm
| looking through 500+EUR Zeiss lenses (that's just for lenses,
| frame price not included), I've had them for a year and have
| one visible scratch. I always take care of my specs, always
| carefult when cleaning or putting on table but still have one
| pretty big and annoying scratch. How did it get there, I have
| no idea.
| ama5322 wrote:
| A single solid scratch might be caused by an accident of
| sorts, this can always happen.
|
| The kind of damage the OP is speaking about seem to match the
| description of very light superficial scratches causing
| diffused softening. Could be damaged coating, or just the
| glass being too soft.
|
| I've only seen this happen on cheap (and normally polymer)
| lenses.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Tried to leave a comment on this blog post, but the confirmation
| link I get via email gives me this error: `Invalid link or
| already submitted comment`
| chadlavi wrote:
| Who has this kind of time? I've been wearing glasses since I was
| a kid too and my approach is: don't worry about it, clean them if
| things look bad.
|
| Unless this is maybe parody and I failed to pick up on that?
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| I worked in an optical lab some 20+ years ago to pay for college.
| Here's how I clean mine:
|
| Fill a clean sink with warm, mildly soapy (dawn dish) water.
|
| Let them soak in that for a few minutes.
|
| Rinse them clean with fresh water.
|
| Spray with lens cleaner (basically it's water with a touch of
| isopropyl alcohol), thoroughly.
|
| Dry with an old cotton baby diaper. I've had a handful of these
| since my lab days. They're so freaking soft now, it's crazy.
|
| Here's key: Never ever ever let your towel hit a counter. If you
| do, you'll scratch a lens. As author of the post writes, keep
| them in a bag. They come out of the bag, clean the glasses, they
| go back in the bag.
|
| Inspect your glasses. Make sure screws are tight. Look at the
| nose pads, replace before they get funky. Seriously, they're
| touching your freaking face.
|
| About every 6 months, I do the above, but I take them completely
| apart first. I'll spray the screws with alcohol and rub them back
| and forth on a towel to get the oils and such off. I'll clean the
| bezels where the lenses go. The nose pads fit in with screws.
| They insert into a cup and the screw goes through that way. I'll
| get a paper towel and make a point and twist it around in the cup
| to clean the oils out of there. Finally I'll wipe everything down
| as per above and reassemble.
| motoboi wrote:
| Wash with water and (very little) soap. Use your fingers to
| gently rub.
|
| Rinse with water until lens become hidrophobic again (signaling
| all the soap is gone).
|
| Dry with air from your mouth (strong blows).
| nunez wrote:
| this reminded me of how thankful i was to finally find contacts
| that work for me. glasses are annoying (to me).
|
| it took ten years, lots of disappointment, and an old-school OD
| doing a number on my eyes after an allergic reaction to contact
| lens cleaner, but it was one of the best things to happen in
| 2021.
|
| (I use Acuvue Oasys toric dailies.)
| nayuki wrote:
| > The ultrasonic cleaner and distilled water are more expensive
| and have greater ongoing costs, although it looks like PS13 of
| distilled water will last for about 3 years
|
| Weird complaint, because distilled water is $1 CAD for 4 litres
| here at any supermarket.
| regularfry wrote:
| For some reason we don't have distilled water quite so readily
| available in the UK. I have absolutely no idea why.
| lvqz wrote:
| My glasses are always clean. Every morning I use a single sheet
| of toilet paper and it does the work perfectly.
| ars wrote:
| The article isn't about how to make them clean, the article is
| about how not to scratch them during the process of cleaning.
| rajup wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Moistened-Lens-Cleaning-Wipes-Eff...
|
| You can thank me later! Never leave home without a bunch of
| these.
| blamazon wrote:
| In the passenger terminal of JFK airport somewhere there is a
| device where you put your glasses inside a clear plastic box and
| it makes a big show of washing them like a miniature car wash.
| Takes a few quarters, seems to work pretty well. I've always
| wanted one for my home.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Odd article. Claims to be inspired by camera lens cleaning
| methods, but I've never heard of any photog using an "oil
| remover", and certainly not an ultrasonic cleaner.
| teh_klev wrote:
| "Inspired" doesn't mean you do the exact same things, sometimes
| you introduce your own ideas, not all necessarily good :)
|
| The residual oil remover mentioned is just a fancy name for
| lens cleaner that you can pick up in most supermarkets:
|
| http://www.newprouk.co.uk/images/ROR/ROR%20data%20sheet.pdf
|
| I've used this stuff to clean my SLR lenses (and my spectacles)
| but just by squirting a small amount onto a microfibre cloth
| rather than directly.
|
| > certainly not an ultrasonic cleaner.
|
| Yeah, I think I'd rather not be exposing my glasses to the
| rigours of the sonic tank :)
| planarhobbit wrote:
| Any reason you can't use pure methanol to clean glasses? I don't
| wear glasses so I don't know the specifics, but that's what we
| use to clean industrial laser lenses and any tiny speck or smudge
| or oil would immediately burn the protective coating. We also
| don't touch the lens tissue when we clean it, rather we put
| methanol on the lens tissue and slide it across. Curved lenses
| are a bit more interesting but same method of cleaning.
| likpok wrote:
| Pure methanol is a little annoying to source. It seems like you
| can only buy it from lab supply shops -- not impossible to get
| but not exactly at the local Walgreens.
|
| All of this feels a little overkill for eyeglasses. Dish soap
| works very well (it's concentrated so don't use too much or
| you'll be rinsing a while) and most people have it in their
| kitchen. I personally mostly use hand soap in the bathroom --
| works less well if it's a soap with lotion but most places
| don't have that. The added benefit is that you can do it almost
| any time or place without thinking too hard.
| spike021 wrote:
| +1 I just use warm water and hand soap, followed by rinsing
| and then a gentle wipe with a soft microfiber towel (the kind
| you'd buy for washing a car actually).
| perihelions wrote:
| It's very toxic and absorbed through bare skin. It's overkill,
| particularly with isopropanol being sufficiently effective and
| safe and easy to buy.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Do you really mean methanol? It's toxic even at low
| concentrations. Can permeate the skin and produces irreversible
| blindness.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I use isopropanol to clean mine, works great. I just use toilet
| paper for the cloth, but combined with the isopropanol you
| don't need to apply any pressure, so scratching doesn't seem to
| be an issue.
| chicob wrote:
| Isopropanol also evaporates quickly, so if there is any dirt
| left behind one can immediately see it.
|
| It probably would be more than enough to clean the hair
| brushes, instead of the ultrasonic thing.
| planarhobbit wrote:
| RE: "overkill" - I agree, but this blog post/article prompted
| me to suggest this as a one step solution to eliminate multiple
| steps with multiple products as an alternative to what another
| commenter called "OCD." A bottle of methanol, and tissue lens.
| Yes, you can't find it everywhere, but you can buy it in bulk
| from a local lab supply store. If you're cleaning constantly,
| keep it in a small dark glass bottle dropper that you can take
| with you.
| ISL wrote:
| Ought to generally be fine. That level of critical cleaning is
| kinda different from what glasses generally require.
|
| Mine wind up with grease, fingerprints, dust, cooking oil,
| etc., so a good surfactant (i.e. dish soap) and some clean
| water tend to work pretty darn well.
|
| If you want to finish 'em off with a critical-cleaning
| approach, go for it. The scratch/AR coatings on most glasses
| should be fine for both methanol and isopropanol. I would _not_
| , however, use solvents like acetone on plastic lenses of any
| kind; it'll probably destroy some of them.
| dekhn wrote:
| Methanol works fine, it's great for removing the various things
| that soap and water won't remove (grease/oil). And yes, ideally
| wipe once in a single direction. Glasses are just another form
| of optics.
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| Absolutely first thing to do is hold the glasses under the faucet
| to get dust particles off.
|
| Follow with, as others have said, dish soap, fingers and
| microfiber.
| csmattryder wrote:
| I just use some IPA and a microfiber cloth.
|
| Man, I've so many better things to do with my time on the planet
| than cleaning my specs.
| ttpphd wrote:
| ...an IPA? Are these beer goggles?
| csmattryder wrote:
| Eh sorta... I wouldn't neck it, but it'd definitely knock you
| out.
|
| Isopropyl alcohol - great for cleaning glass-wear and dirty
| electronics.
| xchip wrote:
| Shall I do all that after or before my 'American psycho' routine?
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| This is exactly the content I want to see here. I love it. It's
| so over the top and min-maxed. This is optimized beyond
| efficiency and I whole-heartedly approve.
| jchook wrote:
| > I then wipe the lens with a dry microfibre cloth...
|
| > Once a week, I use an oil remover...
|
| Intimacy / kisses tend to leave my lenses smudged with face oils
| and sometimes makeup. Dry cloths don't seem to remove that very
| well. This works for me:
|
| 1. Spray with lens cleaner
|
| 2. Wipe off with a microfiber cloth
| Digit-Al wrote:
| Dude, please use margins. The writing is far too close to the
| edge of the screen for comfortable reading.
| odysseus wrote:
| I feel like this article lays the groundwork for a high quality
| artisanal eyeglass cleaning video.
|
| Reminds me just a touch of
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBb9O-aW4zI
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| I just lick the lens and rub with a cloth. Spit and shine.
| sodimel wrote:
| My glasses are always dirty, I use my tshirt to clean them every
| day or so. They are full of little scratches, but if I don't
| focus on them, I don't notice them. My old pair (which I keep in
| case my current pair breaks unexpectedly) are even worse, with
| big visible scratches. They (the old pair) lasted at least 4 or 5
| years, and the current ones are at least 3 years old, but I don't
| really remember.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| What I found is sufficient to get my glasses spotless is: dip in
| hot water, dry with paper towel, dip in hot water, dry with paper
| towel, rinse in cold water, dry with paper towel, rinse in cold
| water, dry with paper towel.
|
| Anything less than that I would find my glasses were not really
| clean.
| ekianjo wrote:
| won't the paper towel cause micro-scratches?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It probably does but it gets the glasses clean. Many things
| I've tried (including those microfiber clothes) just smear
| contamination around making the glasses at least as dirty if
| not dirtier than when I started.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| As a farm kid who spent time in a dusty barn every day, my
| glasses were often so dirty that they looked opaque to others. I
| didn't notice and didn't care.
|
| How the brain processes visual information is really weird. I'm
| not surprised that a slight speck of dirt would really bother
| some people but not others.
| jefftk wrote:
| Dust is fine, you adapt, but with grease it gets blurry and
| there isn't much ability to correct. I really noticed this when
| I switched to new glasses with a hydrophobic coating that
| handled grease very differently.
| davidito wrote:
| I have used a variety of wipes to clean and/or dry my lenses over
| the years. This always left microscratches and damage to the AR
| coating over time.
|
| Since I switched to the hand method, my lenses are in much better
| shape:
|
| 1) Clean hands with basic bar soap, leave soap suds on hands 2)
| Lightly rub lenses and frames with soapy fingers, taking care not
| to apply too much pressure and deposit skin oils 3) Rinse off
| with hot water 4) Shake glasses dry with both hands (carefully)
| 5) If tiny water spots bother you, or you can't wait for the
| remaining droplets to naturally dry, use a lint free glasses wipe
| to dab (not wipe) them dry
| vmaen wrote:
| Be careful with hot water, according to my essilor, that's what
| destroyed the coating on mine...
| makach wrote:
| Don't ever use any form of paper. I saw my optician get ready to
| clean my new subscription glasses with the type of paper towel
| that you use to dry your hands with - I didn't scream at her, but
| yelped so that she stopped what she was about to be doing.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > subscription glasses
|
| Is this a thing, or a typo of prescription? Subscriptions would
| be very helpful when you have children with glasses. Probably
| ludicrously expensive though.
| smm11 wrote:
| I spray with Windex, rub the lenses with my thumbs, let sit a few
| minutes, rinse with water, tap on the sink, then let dry.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway123x2 wrote:
| Yup, this is my new go to. I don't even bother with the
| insurance reimbursement any more.
| soneca wrote:
| That doesn't solve the problem that after a few days of use my
| glasses are dirty.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| Hench, the "beat the crap out of them" step. Wipe them on my
| shirt or any nearby rag as needed.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| 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.
| deepspace wrote:
| > 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.
| effingwewt wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Aulig wrote:
| 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.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| chmod775 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Yeah, I spend PS300+ per pair on not having coke bottle thick
| glasses that are thin and light, and made out of polycarb.
| INTPenis wrote:
| 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.
| jefftk wrote:
| 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 (so the overall
| glasses are ~$100)
| tecleandor wrote:
| 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.
| adzm wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >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.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| 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.
| superkuh wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Paying more can get you thinner lenses? This is of interest
| to me as I do have coke bottle-thick glasses.
| Groxx wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| esaym wrote:
| There is high index polycarbonate and high index trivex.
| But polycarbonate has a side effect of the optics getting
| blurry the closer to the edge of the lens you get.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| 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.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| _> A good chunk of people require glasses that need to be
| custom-made._
|
| Zenni makes their glasses to order; what do you mean?
| nunez wrote:
| if you get the most basic lenses, the glasses are super
| cheap (since it costs almost nothing to make frames).
|
| if you start adding features (like thinner lenses, or
| coatings), the price adds up quickly.
|
| i usually spent $60-$120 per pair of glasses on Zenni.
| conductr wrote:
| Lenses are much cheaper to manufacture than most people
| realize. Most of the coatings and upgrades are 95%+
| profit with very little cost.
|
| An interesting thing I learned in that industry, the
| uncut "puck" of plastic/material is usually cut to your
| prescription via an CNC style machine. The cut
| instructions are essentially a pre-built CAD file based
| on your prescription/measurements. A significant cost of
| the process is paying "click fees" which are essentially
| IP to use that CAD file or a usages based tier on the CNC
| machine (however you want to look at it). I think, for
| the company I was working with at least, it was tied to
| the CAD file though. I recall some discussion of us
| changing vendors as current vendor's CAD files were
| failing QC checks at an unacceptable level. If I remember
| correctly, it was about $5 of a $20 finished good
| (averages for a pair of lenses). Every coating imaginable
| would only add $3 at most to cost of goods.
|
| Memories from ~3 years ago.
|
| IP/Brands drives a lot in this industry and is how Zenni
| is able to cut costs. A company like Rayban will partner
| with a lense manufacturer to put a logo on the lense and
| then charge $300 for the lenses. It's the exact lense the
| manufacturer would normally sell for $25 but now it has a
| Rayban logo on it. (I actually had these and ended up
| scratching off the Rayban logo because it was constantly
| visible in my periphery).
| nunez wrote:
| That sounds about right. I remember having gone to an
| optometrists office some time back and they were able to
| cut lenses right there and have glasses ready in an hour.
| I was amazed and couldn't understand why everyone
| couldn't do this.
|
| Sunglasses are the worst. They cost basically nothing to
| make but the profit margin is Inf% b/c of branding. A $20
| (at most) pair of non-name sunglasses instantly becomes a
| $700 pair of glasses once you slap a few PRADA insignias
| around it.
|
| I used to get my sunglasses from Goodr; they charged $25
| for no-slip polarized sunglasses, which were very good.
| After one of the pairs broke, I decided to get two pairs
| of Ray-Ban Wayfarers, one for $75, and the other for
| $200. I knew I was getting fleeced, but I finally wanted
| a pair of "cool" shades and could finally get them
| without breaking the bank. :D
| conductr wrote:
| The locally made lenses still exists but it's becoming
| very rare. When I was a kid my parents went to a one-hour
| place, that made them on the spot. It's still possible
| but not economical. Not that they passed the savings to
| the consumer of course. Gotta love economies of scale.
|
| If forgot to mention sales commissions as I was talking
| about cost of goods. But a variable compensation for the
| sales person, is a lot of your cost if you are in a
| retail setting. Believe it or not, your optometrists gets
| paid commission too (if an employee) as does the person
| at the desk. It's a sales heavy business. Buy eyedrops,
| buy lens cleaner, buy here - we really don't want you to
| walk out the door with your prescription! We have a
| metric called "capture rate" that our commission is
| attached to!!
|
| It's not too bad but was a surprise to learn it's much
| more retail than medical (as a business). I think in most
| the world it's not even necessary to see a doctor to get
| glasses, like in the US. I usually leave and buy
| somewhere else because my doctor just has a crappy
| selection of frames, every single time, he gives me the
| prescription when I ask. Then I have to ask for the
| pupillary distance and he acts like he doesn't know what
| that is. "Why do you need that?" Because if I buy online
| they'll ask, "Oh yeah, I can take that measurement".
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| sgt wrote:
| The chromatic aberrations are there but I think you just
| need to get used to them. Alternative is heavy glasses.
| sgt wrote:
| Also - the only aberration I notice is with blue light
| e.g a bright LED. It goes away if you look directly at
| it. How is your experience?
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| That's not true. My glasses are super light and the
| thickness is not a concern whatsoever. I can shake my
| head back and forth with my head down and they don't move
| at all. And for the past decade since my Rx got
| particularly bad I have always found the aberrations
| annoying, so no, I won't "just get used to them".
|
| I can't stand chromatic aberrations because they make
| everything outside of the centre of the lens blurry. This
| worsens my tendency for one eye or the other to wander if
| I'm trying to focus on something just at the edge of
| reading distance (road signs or restaurant menus, for
| example) and makes driving at night in the rain
| difficult. My current glasses have an acceptable amount
| of abberations, but my previous set was horrible.
|
| I really should be wearing contacts and I've tried them
| several times, but I generally find them very
| uncomfortable and I've always hated how they take away my
| perfect close-up vision.
| mkmk wrote:
| At your strong prescription, are there any styles of
| frames or lenses that you've found reduce facial
| displacement?
| sgt wrote:
| Smaller is better, although I've found a medium sized
| Ray-Ban carbon frame that looks modern and is also
| extremely light. Higher index making the lens thinner
| also reduces displacement. Most people don't notice I
| have a strong prescription.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > Except they polished the edges of the lens instead of
| leaving them frosted, which creates distracting
| reflections under certain light
|
| Could you apply some kind of light paint to the edges?
| Maybe nail polish?
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| I could remove the lenses and carefully sand the edges
| slightly with fine sandpaper to create a frosted effect,
| but I haven't tried it yet.
| lonelyasacloud wrote:
| As someone with fairly pronouced Astigmatism in the
| expensive glasses camp, I'd say:
|
| 1) The glasses have to accurately hold my the lens at a
| specific location and orientation relative to my eyes in
| order that they actually work.
|
| Off by a little bit and it's world of splitting headaches
| and crazy distortion
|
| Achieving that positioning, while dealing with my wonky
| ears, size of head, eye locations etc - requires knowledge
| beyond current web systems before ordering and - unless
| completely bespoke fabrication of frames as well - some
| form of final fitting post delivery.
|
| - The prescription is sufficiently rare that the lens are
| not mass produced and instead have to be custom ground and
| cut to fit the frames before the glasses can be assembled.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Have you considered maybe trying audiobooks instead? ))
| joshvm wrote:
| > The ultrasonic cleaner and distilled water are more expensive
| and have greater ongoing costs
|
| Distilled water should be pretty cheap. You can sometimes buy it
| as "ironing" water. I use it for my watercooled PCs (plus coolant
| concentrate), in Switzerland it's about 1 CHF a litre from the
| supermarkets.
| dncornholio wrote:
| The breath and piece of cloth method worked so well, I really
| didn't think of needing another method.
|
| I'm curious on what the author used to test his cleaning methods,
| because it seemed to only appears after 2 years of using this
| method.
| camtarn wrote:
| Yeah, exactly this: there's no way for the author to tell if
| the method is actually any better, so this article seems a
| little premature!
| aliljet wrote:
| I've noticed over the years, the primary failure mode for my
| lenses is the coating being scratched. I wonder if anyone has a
| good way to have that coating repaired or replaced?
| bradwood wrote:
| As a late 40-something I've recently had to start using readers.
| I went to the optometrist and got a PS70 pair which I broke
| within the first 6 months. After one or two more pairs I thought
| - fuck this and just ordered a cheap pack of 5 readers at the
| right strength for a tenner off Amazon.
|
| For 2 quid a pair, I treat these now as disposables and I've
| never looked back. I use the microfibre cloth + breath method to
| clean them and this works well.
|
| But having 10 pairs of specs lying around at work, in the car, at
| home, etc was the best call I ever made.
|
| Granted my prescription is standard - if I had astigmatism or
| similar it might be different, but for those who just need
| readers this is a no brainer.
| cornstalks wrote:
| The best method I've found so far:
|
| 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.
| nickjj wrote:
| 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.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| Haha laminar flow. So I'm not the only one. I always wondered.
| vmaen wrote:
| Exactly what I do!
| conqrr wrote:
| 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.
| fmajid wrote:
| I use an air compressor to blow the droplets away.
| qwertywert_ wrote:
| I just air-dry my glasses after dish soap cleaning, by whipping
| it in the air with my arm. Works pretty well actually.
| ddingus wrote:
| 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.
| dboreham wrote:
| Opened this page to make post about my secret method for
| glasses cleaning. Find 50 posts saying to do the same thing I
| do. The joy of HN...
| pizza234 wrote:
| 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)!
| aidenn0 wrote:
| What _uncoated_ lenses do you have? Polycarbonate lenses
| usually have an anti-scratch coating, and most lenses have an
| AR coating as well.
| raggi wrote:
| 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.
| toss1 wrote:
| 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)
| WalterBright wrote:
| 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.
| LK83 wrote:
| Me too! I thought I was the only one who did this. Replace step
| 6 with using my shirt :)
| JJMcJ wrote:
| 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.
| ezekg wrote:
| Exactly how I do it. There's no easier way to clean lenses.
| twawaaay wrote:
| I use similar method, except:
|
| - 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.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| > 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.
| twawaaay wrote:
| Do you get scratch resistant frames, too?
|
| 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.
| yisonPylkita wrote:
| 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
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| Instead of wiping with cloth, I use a hair dryer in cold
| setting.
| twawaaay wrote:
| 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.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| The author of the submission mentions they use distilled
| water , presumably for this reason
| twawaaay wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| flappyeagle wrote:
| I do almost the exact thing except with cold water.
| paulsmith wrote:
| Almost my exact same method. Just wash your glasses in the sink
| with soap. It's easy.
| parentheses wrote:
| 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.
| ridgeguy wrote:
| I use this with mods on steps 5 & 6.
|
| 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.
| headbee wrote:
| Using soap on surfaces that have an oleophobic coating can
| degrade the quality of the coating. This is even worse with
| dish soap.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| How else do you get rid of grease? The scattering of light on
| grease on the lenses is unbearable for me whenever I don't
| use dish soap.
| headbee wrote:
| If the oleophobic coating is intact (and good quality) it
| should come off with just a clean cloth.
| jsvaughan wrote:
| this is it. also needs emphasis on getting a clean tea towel or
| equivalent out of the drawer, do not be tempted to use anything
| else.
| ornornor wrote:
| That's exactly my technique too. Except I wear rubber gloves
| because the dish soap makes my hands very dry otherwise.
| dionian wrote:
| My process was the same except for #5. Just tried it out and
| see what you mean! No more drops on the lens! Thanks for
| sharing
| MengerSponge wrote:
| 0. Wash your hands :)
|
| It's better to do a final rinse with RO or distilled water.
| thedracle wrote:
| The dish soap method worked best for me. But the best method
| was getting lasik, now my old glasses are in a drawer gathering
| dust.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I had RK in my 20s. No I'm in my 50s, so I'm back to glasses.
| gsich wrote:
| Can't escape that.
| kqr wrote:
| 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.)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > 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!
| batch12 wrote:
| 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.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0wZLGrxuKg
| js2 wrote:
| The best method I've found so far (I've worn glasses for over
| four decades):
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Zeiss-Pre-Moistened-Cleaning-Wipes-Co...
|
| If they are especially dirty, I'll rinse them with clean water
| and maybe a bit of soap first.
| buro9 wrote:
| Yup, I do this with some nice microfibre for drying /
| removing any smears afterwards.
| robga wrote:
| I use the exact same cleaners and have for years.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| And they are easy to get, I see them at walmart in 50 and 100
| count.
| melenaboija wrote:
| I do almost the same and I completely agree. For step 6 an
| unused paper towel is what works best for me.
|
| I am guessing this may damage the glasses with the dust but it
| is fast and effective.
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| I asked the optician how they clean glasses:
|
| - 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.
| clashmeifyoucan wrote:
| 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.
| frogulis wrote:
| > 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?
| rosmax_1337 wrote:
| 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)
| a2tech wrote:
| 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.
| otachack wrote:
| I second this. Super easy to do and kept my current 1 year
| old glasses in great shape.
| foobarian wrote:
| 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.
| causi wrote:
| _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.
| [deleted]
| buildbot wrote:
| Are optical coatings that sensitive that warm water might
| bother them? I'll have to treat my lenses differently.
| stereo wrote:
| 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.
| OJFord wrote:
| > 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.
| MikeKusold wrote:
| I've ruined my coatings by wearing them in the sauna
| before. Sauna temps tend to be around 180.
| m463 wrote:
| 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.
| ComputerCat wrote:
| Same! Except dish soap lathered between fingers first, and I
| just blow dry them to avoid streaks or fuzz of any kind.
| thomasmg wrote:
| 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.
| dwringer wrote:
| 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.
| donatj wrote:
| Rinse under the faucet with medium-warm water to get any
| dust/grime off, then dry using medium pressure with a hand towel
| size microfiber cloth. That's all you need to do.
|
| I use the cloth for a couple months and then toss it. They're
| never the same after being washed, and they're cheap enough. I
| bought a 24 pack for $7 on Amazon in 2017 and I'm still working
| my way through it.
|
| I've had this pair of glasses for about 4 years and they're
| perfect.
| remflight wrote:
| Lol I think the OP is just getting older and his vision is
| getting worse.
|
| My vision is poor (-600) but was stable for 25 years. In the last
| two years and especially in the last year once I got into my 50s,
| my vision has dropped like a rock. I need reading glasses for the
| first time in my life and when it's too dark I can't read
| anything. Switching between phone and tv is HARD and I can't read
| properly for several minutes while my eyes adjust.
|
| _sigh_ What a drag it is, getting older...
| dionian wrote:
| You should rinse with water to remove debris before rubbing. I
| just put a drop of dish soap and rub with my fingers and then
| rinse. Then I dry off with a glass cleaning fabric. I use a
| toothbrush rather than my thumb to do a more thorough cleaning if
| desired.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| That's a sure-fire way to strip any coatings you've got.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Dawn dish soap should be fine to use as long as there isn't
| any other junk like lotions.
|
| A toothbrush, on the other hand, is completely not
| recommended.
| init0 wrote:
| Why don't you wash it with water?
| jackspratts wrote:
| Hotest water you can stand. Blast copious amount over lenses,
| both sides. This removes some grease and large grit. Put several
| drops of detergent on finger tip and rub onto thumb tip. Using
| thumb and finger coat detergent onto both sides of both lenses
| then rub gently. A few seconds is all you need. This removes all
| remaining oils and suspends any remaining grit preventing
| friction scratches during cleaning. Rinse lenses with hot water
| and gently dry with paper towel. Hold up to light to check
| progress. Remaining smears if any come off with paper towel. Been
| doing it for decades. It never scratches and it cleans like new.
| oezi wrote:
| I would strongly advise against paper towels. With bad luck
| these contain small splinters of wood that might be just as
| sturdy enough to cause small scratches. Happened to me on a
| pair that I had just worn for 6 weeks.
| l8arrival wrote:
| This is really bad advice, about hot water. When I was in New
| Zealand once, where you sometimes still encounter faucets with
| a separate hot water and cold water tap, I accidentally ran my
| glasses through the very hot water coming out of the hot water
| tap and it completely destroyed the coating on the lenses, it
| was as if I had run sandpaper over them.
|
| The water only needs to be lukewarm. i.e. rinse glasses with
| lukewarm water, then get a drop of dish soap on fingers and rub
| fingers through a bit more water to dilute the soap, then
| gently scrub the lenses as you describe, and then rinse the
| glasses again with lukewarm water. Almost all the water will
| sheet off.
| quasarj wrote:
| Ain't no way I could brush the dust off, it's all glued on by
| oil. I guess I'm a fat fucker and produce way more oil than
| normal, though...
| dmtroyer wrote:
| suddenly very self-conscious about my very dirty glasses...
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I hate the metalized coatings they put on lenses these days
| because they are so fragile. The antireflective coatings "craze"
| when exposed to thermal cycles. My current pair I ordered without
| AR coating, and they still came with a "hardness" coating. All it
| takes to ruin it is a spattering of aerosol sunscreen in passing.
|
| A few weeks ago, one lens got bad enough that I soaked it in
| glass etching acid overnight and then polished it with Novus
| acrylic polish. In the last month I spent a lot of time outdoors
| with folk using sunscreen, and the other lens has gotten bad
| enough that I need to polish it as well.
| camtarn wrote:
| Hah, it's great to hear that the etch-and-polish approach
| actually works! I've considered doing this to my glasses to
| remove messed-up antireflective coatings, but always chickened
| out before actually doing it.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| That's the reason I go cheaper on sunglasses. You can find
| quite good ones for 15-20 and I go through 2-3 pairs a year. No
| matter how well one takes care of them the coatings and lenses
| get ruined quite quickly..
| vel0city wrote:
| The one recommendation about going with cheap sunglasses is
| getting polarized ones. Good polarization is practically half
| the difference between the ultra cheap and the really fancy
| sunglasses in my experience. Decent polarization really cuts
| down on glare. There are several brands out there making
| pretty affordable pairs of glasses with polarization filters
| on them. I get mine for ~$35, often last me at least a year
| or so.
| blakesterz wrote:
| This title is missing a word:
|
| "How I Clean my Glasses"
|
| I half expected a post where someone brags about cleaning
| glasses. HOW I clean my glasses is pretty interesting for those
| of us who wear them. Mine are just ALWAYS dirty, I don't know
| what the heck I keep doing to them.
| ekianjo wrote:
| HN removes the How in submissions automatically
| Tomte wrote:
| HN strips "How" on submissions. It's just one of many annoying
| auto-edits.
| mttjj wrote:
| Pretty sure this is an automated word removal action by the HN
| submission form. There've been threads about the words that are
| filtered out by default. It comes down to trying to make titles
| less clickbait-y. Though I do agree that "How" does provide
| some important context in this case.
| dang wrote:
| Yes, sometimes it doesn't work at all. Most of the time it
| does. A mod has fixed this one.
| [deleted]
| Jasper_ wrote:
| HN has a strict "don't editorialize article titles" policy,
| backed by a bot that automatically editorializes article titles
| for you. It's great.
| teddyh wrote:
| And sometimes titles are editorialized manually:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396861&p=2#31397151
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31638648#31643597
| dang wrote:
| Those titles weren't editorialized. They were edited in
| keeping with HN's title rule, which calls for editing
| titles when they are either misleading or clickbait.
|
| I realize it's annoying when there's an edit that you don't
| agree with--and I would never claim that we get every case
| correct. But HN's overall approach to titles is one of the
| easiest things to defend about the entire site. It makes an
| enormous difference to the quality of the front page.
|
| Edit: you can't compare "HN as it is" to "HN as it is, but
| without the title edits I dislike". That's not a possible
| alternative. The alternative is "HN without the current
| title policy", and that would be a front page inundated
| with linkbait and sensationalism--exactly what most people
| come here to avoid.
| Jasper_ wrote:
| The title policy is fine, but I find it really weird that
| it's defended as "not editorializing" -- by your own
| admission, you edit titles to put your own spin on the
| article's contents, and focus on something different than
| what the original title wanted to focus on.
|
| "Why I no longer recommend Julia" is a perfectly good
| title, it's prompting a question which the article will
| hopefully answer. Changing it to focus on correctness and
| composability bugs, rather than the bigger picture of why
| the author can't recommend the language, _is_ putting
| your own spin, aka, editorializing. And that 's fine! But
| you really should admit it, rather than crouching behind
| a weird defense.
| dang wrote:
| I'm happy to admit mistakes (and correct them!) but this
| is inaccurate. We don't edit titles to put our own
| personal spin on a topic, which is what the word
| editorializing means. We look closely at the article
| itself to find what it is actually saying. If we do
| replace a title, we replace it with representative
| language from the article itself wherever possible. This
| has been the case for a long time: https://hn.algolia.com
| /?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
|
| That does involve some interpretive judgment--because why
| pick one phrase rather than another--but less than you
| might think, because nearly every article has a point
| where the author says what they're actually writing
| about.
|
| We never do this to convey an opinion of our own. We
| don't much care what people think or what an article
| says. We care whether the title accurately _represents_
| what the article is saying, and does so in a way that isn
| 't baity, because that is the biggest influence on
| discussion quality.
|
| The submission you guys are bringing up
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396861)
| illustrates the point. "Why I no longer recommend Julia"
| is a baity title, because it doesn't say anything
| specific about why. It's just a pointer that says "I boo
| Julia". "Boo $language" is for sure flamebait on this
| site.
|
| Such titles generate threads that are just generic boo-
| vs.-yay ventings between people who like $thing and
| people who don't. The substantive points of the article
| are lost under such a title. This is not true on the
| original blog, because there the title is just the first
| sentence, and any comments show up only at the end. But
| it's definitely true on an internet forum where the title
| is the entire representation of the article for most
| readers and commenters.
|
| For that reason, we chose to change the title, and for
| that we looked at the article (https://yuri.is/not-
| julia/) to find where it says what it is actually about--
| the "representative language" I mentioned above. This was
| not hard to find--it's in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th
| paragraphs of the OP. Particularly the 4th, which reads:
|
| _My conclusion after using Julia for many years is that
| there are too many correctness and composability bugs
| throughout the ecosystem to justify using it in just
| about any context where correctness matters._
|
| That's the article's own summary of what it says, so we
| made it the title. Basically we followed the pointer and
| replaced it with what it points to.
| teddyh wrote:
| How about the second example? The linked article is
| decidedly _not_ a technical specification or even a
| discussion about any details of OpenStreetMap 's Data
| Model. The article lacks any snippets of code or map
| data. It is quite clearly a defense of the simplicity of
| OpenStreetMap's data model (using analogies and
| anecdotes) as reflected by the article's title. How,
| then, could one possibly justify the title change?
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| The bot removes common clickbait words ("How to...", "12
| reasons to...", etc.), and you can change it back if it's not
| warranted.
| dang wrote:
| Don't confuse "edit" with "editorialize". Editorializing is
| editing a title to put one's own spin on it.
|
| HN's actual rule isn't hard to find--it's in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, which is
| linked at the bottom of every page and which commenters here
| ought to be familiar with. This is what it says: " _Please
| use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait;
| don 't editorialize._"
|
| Note that "unless".
| Kehvarl wrote:
| If I have a proper cleaning cloth and some cleaning spray handy
| I'll use that, otherwise I'll just use my shirt or a clean
| microfiber cloth. Even with that abuse, the coating on my lenses
| tends to last roughly 2 years. I've never managed to cause enough
| scratching on my lenses to bother me before it was time to see
| about getting new ones anyway.
| dzek69 wrote:
| I have only used two pairs of glasses for around 12 years, I
| replaced my old ones only because I left them at the gym and
| never got them back.
|
| The magic: I just bought the glasses at good place (not the most
| expensive brand in my country, but quite decent) and picked the
| "greatest package" of features. They offered me like four
| features to pick from: - anti blue light - scratch resistance -
| scratch resistance level 2 - something else I don't remember but
| sounded useful
|
| so I picked them all. The frames wasn't anthing top-branded so I
| paid like $200. The prices may differ around the world, I know
| but it's still lower than any mid-range smartphone and I suspect
| it should be similar in most of the world.
|
| I used to use a t-shirt without any fluid for years (results were
| good enough), but since covid I clean my glasses with hand
| sanitizer with 60% alcohol (water based, not that jelly thing
| that would smear the view) and 4-layered tissues, the softest
| ones I can find (I have allergy, so I use tissues all the times,
| so just by "coincidence" I always have the softest tissues you
| can find with me).
|
| Scratches? I can see a few, I suspect they all happened when I
| dropped my glasses on the concrete. I once sit on my glasses, I
| once dropped something heavy on the glasses I left on the floor
| near my bed. Frames got bended and they don't keep on my head
| that good anymore, so I drop them like twice a month, especially
| when I'm working physically on something. But still don't get
| scratches even by that.
|
| For contrast:
|
| My girlfriend bought the "greatest package" in a quite no-name
| shop (but with high rating on Google Maps, everyone is
| recommending the place), paid around 80% of what I paid, just
| because she liked the frames they were offering. After three
| years her glasses are scratched like hell, they look like a thing
| made from scratches. It's definitely time to replace them. Idk if
| she ever dropped them, she cleans them the same way I do. But
| those tiny scratches are definitely caused just by cleaning.
|
| So to everyone I recommend trying to find a good store for your
| glasses and spend bigger amount of money on them. If you're
| replacing glasses every two years your investment on something
| better will return fast. If you are low on money - prefer good
| lenses over looks.
|
| It will still be cheaper than ultrasonic cleaner and easier than
| treating your everyday item like an ancient artifact :)
| aspyct wrote:
| Before the camel hair brush, we typically use a blower on the
| lenses. The least you touch that expensive glass, the better!
| havblue wrote:
| Personally I've had okay luck with the pre moistened lens wipes.
| You can clean your glasses then proceed to clean whatever screens
| in your car, phone, laptop, or other surfaces are close by.
| There's always something dirty within arms reach. No need to
| worry about destroying the coating.
| jdfellow wrote:
| Isopropyl wipes are my go to. I buy them in big boxes and carry
| them regularly.
| CharlesW wrote:
| My favorite solution as well. These work great for me:
| https://www.amazon.com/ZEISS-Lens-Wipes-Pre-Moistened-Eyegla...
| jollyllama wrote:
| A service where you pay a few bucks and send your glasses for
| deep cleaning, refurbishing of hinges, and touch up paint etc.
| would be cool, assuming you have redundant pairs or don't wear
| them every day. I do notice the grime that accumulates in the
| nooks and crannies of my glasses.
| nickjj wrote:
| > I do notice the grime that accumulates in the nooks and
| crannies of my glasses.
|
| Basic wood toothpicks work really well for getting rid of
| anything that might build up around the little nubs near your
| nose. It takes like 30 seconds and it's something you might do
| once a month.
| otikik wrote:
| I got lasik eye surgery and got perfect vision in 20 minutes,
| more than 15 years ago. Best decision ever (don't skimp on this,
| go to the best professional you can afford)
| eigenrick wrote:
| I tend to enjoy sports and manual labor, so end up sweating all
| over my glasses a few times a week. Because of this, the oil
| removal process is the piece in which I'm most interested.
|
| I have used a glass cleaner spray bottle (which was methanol)
| when that ran out, I just refilled it with 95% ethanol (grain
| alcohol) and it seems to be fine.
|
| I am curious about RoR and its chemical makeup. Is it that
| different than an alcohol?
| d23 wrote:
| I read this and was baffled. I've never broken a pair of glasses.
| The article made me realize I needed to clean my glasses. I wiped
| them off with a wipe from a pack of wipes I always use.
|
| A few hours later, I just realized one of the hinges on my
| glasses has no tension anymore. It just swings freely. What a
| strange coincidence.
| pen2l wrote:
| Be careful with using ultrasonic cleaners or using otherwise
| strong solutions because of the risk of taking off
| polarized/anti-glare lens coating, if you happened to have gotten
| it (you probably should have :)). Working in a lab that had
| ultrasonic cleaners, I used to do this and it happened with me
| after a few washes.
|
| It is indeed a bit of a pain to clean it (I'm lazy and just
| don't... unless it gets really, really bad). This is why I'm
| strongly considering LASIK, don't have to pay for glasses for
| years ahead, don't have to deal with inconvenience of having it
| all the time (and especially when traveling and when doing
| physical exercise), don't have to deal with glare at night-time
| driving. I'm nearsighted and have astigmatism so I have to think
| carefully about this. Happy to hear if folks have their
| experiences to share on getting LASIK!
| tecleandor wrote:
| What did you use with the ultrasonic cleaner? Just de-ionized
| water or any solution?
| pen2l wrote:
| If I recall correctly, first I used to use di water, but
| later on I used a solution. Whatever protocol is used in
| biological labs to wash flasks and tubes, I pretty much
| followed that, I don't remember what washing solution I used,
| I recall it felt like soapy water. It's possible that latter
| might have been the problem.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| I'm in the same boat as you, in fact I've got several eye
| consults lined up for next week.
|
| I just wanted to say, LASIK is a catch-all term now-days. I
| would recommend to see if you're eligible for the ReLEX
| SMILE[0] proceedure. That's what I'm hoping for. There are some
| (disturbing) videos on youtube that show the process step-by-
| step[1].
|
| The biggest fear for me for traditional LASIK has always been
| the flap. SMILE is flapless.
|
| [0]
| https://med.stanford.edu/eyelaser/procedures/ReLEXSMILE.html
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L41-CqynUHE
| staindk wrote:
| This is interesting! I recently read that new tech has also
| allowed PRK to become better and thus more popular again - I
| compared it to LASIK a while ago and would probably have
| leaned more towards PRK from what I read.
|
| This looks like the best of both worlds, great idea.
| sswezey wrote:
| I got PRK last year because I didn't want the flap. I was
| supposed to have 20/20 or better vision after a month.
| Exactly one week later, my eyes had recovered to 20/15 and
| 20/18. The recovery honestly wasn't that bad and I forget
| that I've only had perfect vision for a year. One of the
| best investments in myself I've ever made!
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I have had anti-glare lens coating but it always wears off
| because I clean my glasses with whatever softish fabric comes
| to hand. I'm not getting again because the last pair I had
| eroded in edgewise fashion so lenses look like the coastline of
| some unvisited continent, which is far more distracting than
| any glare in the worn-away areas.
| camtarn wrote:
| I wish I could do this - I've asked my opticians if I can
| have lenses without the coating, but they've said that the
| lenses automatically come coated and there's nothing they can
| do. Which seems pretty strange given that the lenses are made
| to order, now that I think about it. Maybe it's something
| about the way they order the lenses in, where there's simply
| no spot to ask for no coating, and they don't want to /
| aren't allowed to pick up the phone?
| pen2l wrote:
| I've been wearing glasses for about 20 years. I've gotten a
| new pair pretty much every year. Every single time I've
| gotten a new pair, I was given the offer for coatings as
| addons, never once did a shop in the midwest or east coast
| just tell me "they come with coatings". Are you in the US?
| camtarn wrote:
| Nope, UK. And admittedly this was just a single optician,
| so maybe things are different elsewhere.
| robinson-wall wrote:
| I bought a device with some kind of cloth pads held opposite each
| other, and when you close it they brush up against an inner pad
| which presumably removes grease from them.
|
| It cost PS20 and I was dubious about it, but it cleans better
| than I've ever managed by myself with a spray. Lasted about 1.5y
| before it stopped being effective (just moves grease around
| rather than picking it up) and I went and bought another one.
| mdemare wrote:
| This, but for keyboards.
| dumptruk wrote:
| This is the approach I use https://www.wikihow.com/Clean-
| Keycaps
|
| Denture tablets are gentle enough to not remove the legends
| from the keycap, especially if its laser printed and not
| etched, double shot, or dye sublimated legends. You can speed
| the drying process by putting your keycaps in a dryer bag
| wrapped with a towel and shaking the water loose from the
| keycaps. As for cleaning the rest of the board, i use an air
| duster to blow out any "board chow" that has settled between
| the keycap posts. For the rest of the keyboard, water with a
| drop or two if dishwasher detergent. You can use other cleaners
| but be careful of stronger, undiluted solvents as the
| denaturing effect in some ingredients will ruin the case over
| time.
| iLemming wrote:
| Nobody uses baking soda? Really? I still can't find anything
| better to remove the fingerprints and other stains off
| eyeglasses. I would use a pinch of soda, add a few drops of
| water, then gently rub it around the glass, repeat on the other
| side and finally rinse it all off. It works better than alcohol
| and soap. Leaves no residue, no streaks, nothing. Putting glasses
| on after, feels like switching to 8K from 1080p.
| alliao wrote:
| you're kidding right, is it plastic or glass lenses? no
| microscratches? lol
| traderj0e2 wrote:
| How do you all super-clean the inside of your car windshield? I
| find those to get a lot dirtier and greasier than my eyeglasses!
| gorkish wrote:
| Also kimwipes.
| gorkish wrote:
| These rituals are pretty time consuming compared to my routine:
|
| 1) use a kimwipe 2) use another kimwipe if they are still foggy
|
| Beyond this, throw them in an ultrasonic cleaner or the
| dishwasher if you want them shiny. Buying glasses that do not
| have an artificially overinflated price is quite liberating.
|
| Edit: Gonna assume the salty downvote is because I said "ritual"
| isn't it? Heaven forbid that anyone else know about a convenient
| product purpose built for cleaning optics.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| Note that I've seen ultrasonic cleaners damage the coatings on
| glasses (especially if you have Transitions Lenses). At the edges
| of the lenses I've seen the coatings come off after several
| rounds through the cleaner. I've seen this with two different
| models of cleaner but I'm not sure if it happens with all of
| them.
| hanoz wrote:
| I've never done anything other than breathe on them and polish
| with the bottom of my shirt. What am I missing?
| pizza234 wrote:
| Grease is not entirely caught by cloth; the stickier/large the
| grease patch, the more it will spread over the lens, making it
| time consuming to clean.
| dheerajvs wrote:
| My lenses have oleophobic coating. I find breathing on them
| and rubbing with microfiber cloth to be quite effective even
| when they are coated with grease.
| int_19h wrote:
| Try running them through a soap cleaning once. You might be
| surprised at how much cleaner they'll end up looking after
| (been there with my spouse!).
| jws wrote:
| Depending on what your lenses are made of, and if you have
| fragile coatings on them, and if you live around or work with
| fine abrasives, this works fine.
|
| I miss actual glass, uncoated lenses.
| eps wrote:
| Not missing them at all. In fact, wouldn't wear them even if
| I'm being paid to be that. Stone age tech :)
| helij wrote:
| I just buy a pack of 200 Zeiss Lens Wipes every 6 months (~PS12).
|
| They are amazing and quick. Money well spent.
| green-salt wrote:
| If you think you can withstand and are a candidate for lasik, I
| highly recommend it. Like any medical procedure, weigh options,
| cost, risk.
| glerk wrote:
| Daily contacts are also a great alternative if your
| prescription isn't too high. I used to use monthlies, and only
| recently found dailies with my level of astigmatism. The
| difference in comfort is pretty significant for me.
| int_19h wrote:
| And if you can tolerate wearing them.
| bdpngn wrote:
| I just use isopropanol solution (70% isopropanol/30% water) then
| wipe with a bit of toilet paper/whatever
| u801e wrote:
| I sometimes use the lens cleaning wipes. Other times, I just wash
| them with liquid soap and water and pat them dry with a towel or
| paper towel (or anything as long as it doesn't leave lint).
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