Crazy contact lenses - what can they do for eyes?

Long gone are the days when special effects contact lenses were exclusive to the film industry.

Today they're available to anyone who wants to look feline, spooky, hypnotic or just plain different. Whichever design you chose special effects contact lenses make a statement that's impossible to ignore.

Crazy Lenses (made by CooperVision) and Wild Eyes (made by CIBA Vision) are currently the two market leaders, and as both companies have solid track records and comparatively priced products choice is really a matter of which design you want.

To make life easier both manufactures supply ‘one size fits all' lenses and they can be ordered with or without vision correction. Special effects contacts are soft lenses requiring nightly removal and cleansing. If they are well looked after they can last for up to a year, but it's important to first check with your eye-care professional.

Crazy Lenses have a wide range of contacts to chose from, with best sellers including yellow cats' eyes and black and white spirals. Not content with just attracting partygoers, Crazy Lenses have also released a range of lenses depicting all the logos of 32 NFL teams – an idea that will no doubt soon make its way across the Atlantic to Europe.

Wild Eyes currently produce a number of designs, with Alien, Zebra and Black Out among the favourites. Sister product lines (also from CIBA Vision) include X-Colors (opaque lenses in vivid colours) and Glitter Eyes (to add a sparkle to the eyes).

More information can be found on each of the company websites, although neither supply lenses directly the public. It's important to remember that when buying special effects contact lenses online suppliers often quote the price for a single lens, so when working out the overall cost you'll have to double the figure and add in the cost of cleansing materials.

If you're really determined to stand out from the crowd (or need a specialised design for a novelty or film production) there are several online companies that will hand paint any design onto a pair of lenses. Naturally if you have your lenses custom made they will cost more than machine stamped lenses.

© The Pink Fridge Online Magazine 2008 - Crazy Contact Lenses

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