check out zenni optical . com for amazing prices. found them on here.
all frames to me are the same unless you headbutt people all day. the only time mine will get messed up is if im feeling rowdy and wrestle around without taking them off first.
been wearing glasses since i can remember. i wouldnt pay money for designer glasses. they make the ugliest frames anyway. the memory titanium frames are pretty good if your rough on them like me. my biggest gripe with glasses though is the nose pads. once they lose their position its nearly impossible for me to get them back to the right spot on my nose and they irritate me all day. so now, even though i like the style less, i wear plastic with molded nose bridges. after getting my RX i bought about 3 pair of the same frame from zennioptical and that was still less than one from my local store.
try lots of pairs on, find a fit at the store. write down the bridge width, lens height, and arm length. then your set to go online and get WAY WAY WAY better prices. good luck.
10x for zennioptical. I've worked in optical manufacturing for 3 years now and I highly recommend them.
There are several types of frames, each with it's own set of benefits.
high moisture acetate - this is softer acetate, often clear. when you heat it it moves and molds really easily. The benefit is that it's easily fitted to your face, but if you leave it in the sun it can go out of whack and have to be readjusted. They are really easy to replace lenses on, and easier to remove a/r lenses without crazing the coating (spiderweb fractures). Unfortunately, the plastic frame has to be thicker at the edge than metal so you will have a big solid bar cutting through your peripheral vision. often you can step on these and they won't be too far out of adjustment, but if they are you'll have to heat them up to bend them back, which probably means going into a shop. LC does free adjustments.
low moisture acetate/grylex/plastics - This is what rayban tends to use in their non-clear frames. It's really solid and stiff, doesn't really like to take a set even when heated. This means that if you have a high prescription and want a wide wraparound type frame it might not work. The lens has to fit the curve of the front or else it will pop out in the front/sides. When these break, they tend to just snap in half and fall off your face. Rayban uses solid good materials, but if you get the same low moisture stuff from the dollarstore, it will break and fall off just from sun and sweat exposure.
stainless steel full frame - these are cheaper than titanium, thinner rims than plastic, and often highly adjustable. They will not deform when heated, and will not lose moisture or become brittle with time (usually takes several years for acetate to do that so you should be fine either way). I've worn all the different types and I'm currently wearing a simple set of stainless full frames. They will bend easily if you step on them or sit on them, and it may be difficult to get them back into shape at home because of how much they can be bent.
titanium full frame - lighter than stainless and more resistant to bending. This makes them better if you often sit on them or bump into things. They are a little harder to adjust because of this, but the benefits are worth it most of the time. They are a little more expensive.
half rimless - The biggest benefit of these is weight and lack of a visible rim on the bottom. some people really can't stand the loss of peripheral vision and the big bar of material in their line of site. I've had customers bring in pairs that are 30 years old, so if you are easy on your glasses they will last just fine. Anything with a groove should be limited to polycarbonate lenses. Plastics and glass are more fragile in thin cross sections, and the edge of the groove is likely to chip off.
drill mount/full rimless - These have the hinges and bridge screwed to the lens itself. the benefit is no visible rim and it's lighter, however it's one of the most fragile types of frames. If you sit on it it can crack the edge of the frame at the screws.
grooved wire - These are like the very first type when people were still tying them on with rope. It's literally 2 or 3 lines of wire that are twisted together to hold the lenses in place. chances are you won't be able to even find them.
inline - This is a 'full frame' option, but instead of the frame wrapping around the edge of the lenses the frame acts like a rimless wire. it's a flat sheet of metal that slips into a groove in the lens. There is 0 benefit to these outside of style in my opinion, they are hard to work with and they make the lenses more fragile,
especially if the guy who makes them doesn't match the frames front base curve.
dollar store - These have welded hinges with no screws. they tend to be made of lower grade acetate that is more likely to degrade with sun and sweat exposure. and the metal tends to be very malleable. chances are unless your a spherical plus you won't be able to get a set with a usable Rx in it.
as far as lens material, your primary options are cr39, polycarbonate, high index and glass.
cr39 - basic plastic lenses. While they don't have a high refractive index, they have a really high abbe value - this means that they tend to be thick but are very very clear. Abbe value is the ability of a lens to refract light without splitting the spectrum. With low abbe value materials like poly carbonate, red and blue light travel at different speeds, so you might see some red or blue fringing on things like tree's against a bright sky at the edge of your vision. not so with cr39. cr39 is not impact resistant, but it is scratch resistant. If you put it in a rimless, it will be prone to chipping at the edge.
polycarbonate - impact resistant, but not scratch resistant. They apply a hardcoat to both sides to make them scratch resistant. This means that they are good for rimless frames, and also better for safeties because they can be made thinner and still be shatter resistant. The crappy part about poly is it's low abbe value, this means that you might get some blue/red fringing at the edges of your vision if you have a high prescription. It's not just that you get fringeing, the the different wavelengths of light travel refract more or less depending on the thickness of the lens, so as you move your head it gets worse as the image goes from center to the edge. Some people can't deal with that, their brain interprets the image as being blurry and they get vertigo from it. If your like that, you'll have to switch to plastic or high index.
"poly plus" - If you get this in a store, it means polycarbonate with an aspheric front. Aspheric just means that instead of being a constant curve (like a basketball) the edge of the lens either becomes more steep, or less steep, making it non-spherical. Most places carry stock that becomes steeper at the edges - this is good for high minus perscriptions because it will basically clip the edges of the lens making them thinner. the drawback is that to do this, it makes the Rx at the edge less strong. When you take that same steeper-edged lens and apply it to a high + perscription, it does the exact opposite - it makes the edges of the lens stronger. This sucks. a lot. I would not recommend getting poly plus if your any kind of plus - unless the send it to an outside lab. To help make the center thinner on a high plus job, you need the front curve to flatten out at the edges, most places don't carry that type of lens in house.
Hi-index - This is a denser form of cr39. cr39 stands for "Columbia resin batch 39", high index is just another type of optical grade plastic resin. By being denser, it slows light down more as it passes through it, giving it a 'higher refractive index'. This means that you need less material to make the same perscription, you get lighter thinner lenses. Like cr39, high index has a high abbe value, so its very clear and crisp at the edges.
Glass - Glass is basically like high index, except you can't make it as thin because it's prone to cracking and fracturing. It has to be surface tempered which means it will likely have to go to a larger optical lab instead of being run in house at a local place. It's benefit is that it has one of the highest abbe values possible, making it among the highest quality images you can get. 1.80 index (Hi index plastic) and glass are the highest visual quality available.
With name brands, acetate is acetate, stainless is stainless, and titanium is titanium. you won't see any major difference in quality going from a 100$ brooks brothers frame up to a 600$ bvlgari. you will see a very slight rise in quality from from the 8$ zenni optical stainless full frames to the 100$ brooks brothers: but only very, very slightly. Not worth the 92$ price hike in my opinion.
are you planning on getting bifocals or progressives? If you are getting either of these, I would suggest getting a frame that you like, taking all the measurements from it (a = horizontal across one lens, b = top to bottom of one lens, FPD = from the inside of one hinge to the nasal side start of the other lens, total width = from the outside of one hinge to the outside of another), have an optician measure it out and determine a seg heigth and a pd (pupillary distance). These are very important when ordering bifocals and progressives, the magnifying portions of the lens have to line up with where your eyes naturally are when looking forward and when reading comfortably.
once you have all that, you can use that information at zennioptical to find a similarly sized and proportioned frame.
If your just going for a single vision set - thats where zenni optical really shines. for 8$ you can get a full set, frames and lenses. Their hardcoat is HELLA reflective - you will see like 3 seperate reflected glares in bright sunlight so I highly suggest getting the a/r, which costs 4.95 from zenni. Given that price range, for the cost of 1 set of a/r lenses at lenscrafters (400$) you could get 30 pairs from zenni optical. their frames are 98-100% as solid and well made as what you'll find at sears, walmart or lenscrafters. The frames themselves are made in china, so if origin of manufacture is important to you you'll have to do some research and pay the higher prices.
I've got a box full of 18 pairs from zenni optical in different frame styles. for 50$ you can get a pair for daily wear, a back up pair, a pair of sunglasses for daily wear and a back up pair. It's literally the best deal available anywhere. I know I sound like a salesmen for them, it's just because I was -8.00 since I was in the second grade and I know what it's like to be struggling financially and have to fork over 300$ for a pair of glasses when your only pair breaks. and, having worked in optical manufacturing, I know that the difference between zenni's 24$ high index a/r glasses and (I kid you not) a 1,200$ pair of designer frames that look identical is
next to nil.
that was a long post o_0
