New Year’s Glasses 2011

Now that they’ve been around for nearly two decades, New Year’s novelty fashion frames have become as integral a part of the annual December 31^st festivities as watching the Times Square ball drop.

The New Year’s glasses date back to 1991 when two Seattle musicians conceived of and patented the idea and began selling the frames in Times Square each year on the big night. Since then, there has been an explosion of copycats, making slight tweaks to the entrepreneurs’ original idea, but the year 2011 presented a daunting challenge to all of them. For the first time, the numbers in the year, 2011, don’t present two obvious places for eyeholes.

The robust novelty eyewear industry isn’t dominated by one company and it doesn’t have any design standardization, so each company selling the glasses tackled the challenge of the lack of loopy letters in its own way. Throughout the 90’s and the 00’s, revelers around the world sipped champagne while peering through the double 9’s and 0’s of their new years glasses. Even 2010 had two zeroes, though they were not as optimally spaced.

This year, some designers have stuck the eyehole in the center of one of the ones, while others have nestled it between the ones, or between the zero and the first one. Some of these efforts are far less aesthetically appealing, but there seems to be an unspoken consensus that moving the numbers of the year above the eyeholes completely would wreck the appeal of the glasses.

The Wall Street Journal chronicled the ways that folks in the new years glasses industry have been dealing with the problem and Pat Shea, the general manager of an online novelty sunglasses store, told the paper she thinks the design challenge of the year 2011 is more blessing than curse. It could infuse the industry with some creativity and inspire people celebrating New Year’s Eve to choose some funkier eyewear.

The Dangers of Laser Eye Surgery

The first laser eye surgery was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1995 and since then, millions of people have been lured by the promise of a life without prescription glasses or contact lenses. And yet, more than 15 years into the existence of the technology, there are still many dangers laser eye surgery presents.

The procedure, often known by the acronym LASIK, which stands for laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis, uses a laser to reshape the patient’s cornea. While many patients are please with the procedure there are still risks of complications, some of them quite serious.

1) Most people only require one surgery but it certain cases, particularly for people with strong or irregular prescriptions, a second procedure is necessary for the operation to be fully effective. Unfortunately, the patient must wait months before the second laser eye surgery so that their eyes can heal and recover in the interim.

2) The whole point of laser eye surgery is to leave your eyewear behind, and yet in some cases people still need to wear prescription glasses or lenses after their surgery. This is because for someone with multiple vision problems, such as nearsightedness and an astigmatism, the adjustment to the cornea might not correct all of them.

3) Sometimes the effects of the surgery are not permanent and begin to reverse over time. This occurs more among older patients whose vision deteriorates as part of the aging process, but it is still an unexpected and unwelcome surprise to many people considering the procedure.

4) While laser eye surgery is intended to improve the quality of life for people who elect to have, it sometimes has the opposite effect. Some post-op patients report ongoing problems with dry eyes, hazy vision, and double vision.

5) Finally, in extreme cases LASIK laser eye surgery can damage your eyes in ways that can’t be corrected by prescription glasses and contacts. This might be a result of scarring, infection, or equipment malfunctions.

Can Contact Lenses Get Lost in Your Eye?

It’s happened to most contact lens wearers at one point or another. Your lenses accidentally slide off center and gets stuck behind your eyelid. It can be uncomfortable, but the first thing you need to know is that contact lenses cannot get lost behind your eye. They cannot somehow infiltrate your brain or any other parts of your body despite the pervasiveness of this myth. It is a physical impossibility.

The membrane that protects the eye acts as a barrier and prevents anything, even something as small as a contact lens, from getting behind it. Lenses usually get unseated from the center of your eye because they are too dry or you’ve been rubbing your eyes excessively. Thinner lenses also tend to get dislocated more easily so someone who wears dailies might be more familiar with the contact lenses scavenger hunt than someone who wears longer term gas permeable lenses.

Here are some steps to follow if your contact lens gets shifted off the center of your eye:

For soft contact lenses –

1) Look down at your nose and close your eyes.

2) Put one of your fingers on your eyelid at the corner of your eye closest to your nose.

3) Gently massage the lens towards the other corner of your eye.

4) Open your eye and remove the lens.

For hard lenses –

1)Make sure you’re over a surface where the lens won’t get lost if it pops out. It’s best to use a light colored surface where the lens won’t bounce such as a hand towel.

2) Hold your eyelid out of the way and use a hand mirror to locate the lens. If you have trouble finding it, the lens may have fallen out already leaving a lingering itchiness or irritation.

3) Once you’ve found the lens on your eye, you can use the lower portion of your lid to push the lens outward. Alternately, some eye doctors will provide you with a small plunger that suctions the convex side of the lens for just such situations.

If all else fails, you should consult an eye doctor. If your lenses are repeatedly falling off center, it may be time to get a contact lens eye exam to try to diagnose the problem.

Winter Eyewear Trends 2010: Fashion Sunglasses

Just because the weather has gotten colder doesn’t mean that your eyes don’t still need protection from the sun’s UV rays. If you’re into winter sports like skiing or snowboarding, you might already have a pair of bulky snow goggles, but what about some everyday eyewear for the winter months? You might ask what makes winter sunglasses different from fashion sunglasses for summer? Boy, are you lucky we’re here to tell you.

Summer shades tend to have darker lenses than their winter counterparts. Though the sunlight in the winter has just as much UV content as always it tends to be grayer and more overcast, hence the lighter colored lenses. Another important factor to consider when buying sunglasses for winter is the changing light conditions and lower angles of light coming from the horizon. There’s also glare from below when sunlight reflects off of snow on the ground. As a result, it makes sense to buy winter sunglasses that fit closer to your face.

A final difference between winter and summer sunglasses is purely stylistic. In the summer, your wardrobe, and consequently your glasses, will likely be populated with a warmer color palette. For winter, earth tones and cool blues are the way to go.

Driving Glasses for All Kinds of Weather

If you wear prescription glasses, you might be hesitant to walk out of the house without wearing a pair, much less get behind the wheel of a car. And yet, an alarming 20 percent of eyeglass wearers occasionally plop themselves down in the driver’s seat wearing non-prescription sunglasses, according to a recent study conducted by Essilor of America, an optical lens manufacturer.

Whether you’re driving in summer or winter, the glare coming directly from the sun, as well as reflecting off the snow and other vehicles is a real impediment to driving safely. The best option is to get glasses with polarized, or photochromic lenses. Clinical trials found that drivers who wear these types of lenses while behind the wheel improved their reactions times by about 1/3 of a second.

While this might seem like an insignificant improvement, if your car is traveling at 50 mph, that’s a 23-foot difference in how soon you’re able to break, which is the length of a typical intersection. The best part of getting lenses that adjust in sunlight is that they are versatile, and can serve not only as driving glasses but as all-purpose indoor or outdoor eyewear.

Glasses of the 10 Most Googled Celebrities of 2010

December means bundling up for the chillier weather, especially for those of us in northern latitudes; but it’s also the time for year-end lists. This tradition gives bloggers the chance to weigh in on the most important news, events, and products of the past 12 months. In that spirit, Cohen’s Fashion Optical would like to present you with the fashion eyewear choices of the 10 Most Googled Celebrities of 2010. We’ll begin from the bottom of the list to build suspense.

10. Angelina Jolie –

Googled over 11 million times, Jolie should feel no shame about rounding out the bottom of this list. Here, she’s rocking a pair of Barton Perreira fashion sunglasses in a style called Emmanuelle.

9. Kanye West -

Kanye should feel a little shame but also not for his placement on this list. His career had more ups and downs in 2010 than a Six Flags roller coaster, which raked in more than 20 million Google searches for him. Here he’s sporting some Dior designer frames in Black tie style 66.

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 – 7. Madonna and Chris Brown -

Here we have our first tie on the list with Madonna and Chris Brown both netting over 30 million Google searches. She can be seen with these Gucci frames that are very reminiscent of Tom Ford, and he is pictured in some photochromatic Diesel frames.

6. Britney Spears -

Despite not having released an album since 2008, Britney Spears still got a healthy 37 million Google searches. Here she’s wrapped in some Tom Ford fashion frames.

 

 

 

 

 

5. Taylor Swift –

This was a big year for Taylor Swift, what with her silver screen debut in the movie Valentine’s Day and her album Speak Now, released in October. But the starlet wasn’t too busy to stay fashionable. Here she’s wearing some cherry red Ray Ban Wayfarers. (Googled 45 million times)

4 – 3. Beyonce and Miley Cyrus –

Here Beyonce was spotted wearing some Marc Jacobs fashion frames with a trapezoidal look. Miley Cyrus is posing in her Roberto Cavalli aviator sunglasses in a style called Tiresia. (Googled 68 million times)

2 – 1. Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga –

Death has not proved a barrier for the King of Pop to being one of the most Googled celebrities on the planet. Here is a picture of him in some Ray Bans from 2009. Of course, at the top of the list is none other than the Queen of Pop, Lady Gaga. In one of her more reserved looks, Gaga is decked out with some stylish Tom Fords. (Googled 151 million times)

The New Eyewear Trend That’s Sweeping Asia

It used to be that the most common place you would see a pair of glasses without lenses would be as part of a novelty disguise, attached to a fake plastic nose and a Groucho Marx-style moustache. But recently, in Taiwain, it’s becoming trendy among people in their teens and twenties to go lensless.

Some say this fashion began in the Japanese and Korean pop music scene, while others claim it originated in Taiwan. In either case, it’s giving young people, especially girls, yet another fashion accessory with which to deck out their wardrobe. In Taipei’s fashionable Ximen district, girls can often be seen with fake eyelashes extending out beyond their frames.

However, the look has unisex appeal, and guys can also be spotted with rims sans lenses. When the Huffington Post interviewed folks on the street, it found that many adherents of the trend actually need corrective eyewear and wear discrete contact lenses behind their feckless frames. Others said that they like the reduced weight of glasses without lenses and some people felt that they looked older or more mature with their fashion frames.

The trend is just starting to spread to China, which has been absorbing more elements of Taiwanese pop culture as diplomatic relations between the two countries have lost some of their edge. Will the fashion of empty eyeglass rims cross the Pacific Ocean and take root on American shores? Only time will tell.

Where to Donate Eyeglasses

The holiday season is upon us and it’s the perfect time of year to consider people who might not have access to things we take for granted such as a pair of prescription glasses. Seventy-five percent of people worldwide who struggle with blindness could easily by helped by a pair of glasses. If only it were something they could afford.

While prescription glasses might not seem like a luxury item in the United States, in some African countries, a pair of glasses can cost more than three months’ wages. By donating your old eyeglasses, you’re giving someone an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise have to read, write, take care of their family, and earn a livelihood. Even in America, there are plenty of people living below the poverty line who have trouble affording eyeglasses for themselves and their children. You may ask, “How can I help?”

There are many organizations that have made it their mission to collect eyeglasses and distribute them free of charge to those who can’t afford them. Perhaps the best known is Lions Clubs International.

Lions Clubs International cleans and fixes up these old non-prescription and prescription glasses before donating them to people in need. You can go to Lions Clubs International’s website to see the 17 locations in the U.S. and around the world where they collect glasses. Even if they don’t have a physical office in your city, they may have drop boxes in your community.

Another organization doing similar work is called OneSight. In 2009, they set a goal of donating 1.2 million pairs of glasses through their eyecare clinics around the world. You can search for their donation location nearest you.

If you’re willing to ship your eyeglasses to a non-profit, there are even more organizations to choose from. For example, New Eyes for the Needy, based in New Jersey, accepts sunglasses, and plastic and metal glasses. Even if the lenses are broken, sending your frames could still benefit a person in need. Make sure you package it securely before shipping though.

Is it More Environmental to Wear Eyeglasses or Contact Lenses?

When people think about their environmental impact, the things they eat and the way they travel from place to place are two of the largest concerns. This makes sense because those lifestyle choices account for sizable portions of a consumer’s carbon footprint. However every purchase can be viewed through an eco-friendly lens (pun intended) and if you’re in the market for eyewear, you might wonder which is more environmentally friendly: eyeglasses or contact lenses.

A lot of factors need to be taken into account, including the energy cost of producing and shipping the designer frames or contacts, how often you get a new pair, and what supplemental supplies such as cleaning fluids are required for maintenance. Here are some the advantages of each of the two types of eyewear:

• Estimates by the environmental blog Tree Hugger place the average replacement rate for glasses at about three years. While some people might where there glasses for much longer this is a good baseline for comparing with contact lenses.
• Contact lenses can be replaced as frequently as once a day or on a monthly or even annual basis if you have hard, gas-permeable lenses. However, even with daily contact lenses only use a fraction of the plastic used to make a pair of eyeglasses.
• While contacts don’t require much material they do require plenty of lens solution, and that’s not even counting the packaging they come in, which tips the scales back in favor of prescription eyeglasses. If soy-based contact lenses come on the market in the near future it could improve the eco-friendliness of contacts.
• The Washington Post cited an estimate that making a pair of eyeglass lenses produces the equivalent of 10.5 pounds of CO2.
• One of the biggest environmental perks of eyeglasses is that, unlike contact lenses, they can be donated to the needy. Organizations like Lions Club International make sure that your glasses go to good use long after you’ve outgrown them

In conclusion there is not enough data publicly available for a thorough carbon footprint lifecycle analysis from the day a pair of glasses or contacts is made until it is thrown away. However, glasses seem to be the slightly greener choice. Now it’s back to worrying about the gas you pump and the grub you eat.