Color contact lenses allow a person to completely alter or enhance their eye color. Before the year 2005, color contact lenses could be purchased over the counter legally and easily. Now, buying any type of color contacts requires a prescription because of the many risks involved. There is potential for serious eye damage caused by contacts that don’t fit, faulty manufacturing, consumer negligence, and the possibility of harmful bacteria being passed around.
Therefore, color contacts are not an unregulated cosmetic device anymore. The FDA now regulates them as medical devices, irregardless of if contact lenses are for correcting vision or not. Nevertheless, some vendors still sell cosmetic lenses without a prescription, despite the fact that it is against the law.
Because of the risk of infection, colored lenses shouldn’t be shared with your friends or worn by children without prior advice from an ophthalmologist. Color contacts need to be cleaned regularly and maintained with the same amount of care as typical contact lenses, with proper disinfection, thorough cleaning, and careful storage between use being a top priority.
There are multiple types of color contacts available on the market today. “Visibility tint” lenses are corrective lenses which are tinted to make them easier to see while handling. Lenses with visibility tint do not alter the color of your eyes. The next step up in color contacts are enhancement tints, which are made to enhance the natural color of your eye. Enhancement tints are often worn by people with lighter colored eyes who want to make their natural color more dramatic.
“Opaque tint” colored lenses are solid color tints manufactured to dramatically alter the color of the eye. Opaque colored tint lenses completely change a person’s eye color, similar to the way someone would change their hair color. These contacts are usually used in conjunction with Halloween costumes and theatrical costumes, and for everyday use as well.
Lastly is the type of contact lens tints named “light-filtering tints”. These are worn by people to make things of certain colors stand out in bright light, enhancing their vision. Light-filtering tinted contact lenses are sort of similar to sunglasses with transition lenses, but are a lot more helpful when it comes to vision correction.
If you are someone who wants to wear color contact lenses just for cosmetic reasons, for vision correction, or even both, you should make sure to get a professional eye exam and prescription from a licensed opthamologist beforehand to make sure you enjoy the use of the product the right way without risking the health of your eyes.