Abbie's Real Life Blog

Okay, I am officially recommending the practice of buying prescription glasses on the internet.  I have bought three pairs (3!) in the past 3 months, and all of them have turned out pretty well.  In total, I spent less on three pairs than I spent on my last pair of replacement lenses (not including frames) at LensCrafters.

Wait, where are you going?  You wear contacts?  Then you need a new pair of backup glasses.  Or a pair of prescription sunglasses.  Or swimming goggles or wind goggles or whatever.  You can get them too!

Okay.  So I bought two pairs through Zenni Optical, each of which cost about $40 including shipping, and they arrived about 10 days after I ordered them.  These were not name-brand frames, but you can’t tell a difference unless you’re particularly fond of wearing a brand name on each side of your head.  The quality is pretty much the same.

But I also bought a name-brand pair (Ray-Ban) from Coolframes.com.  I saw them at LensCrafters and really liked them, and then I found them online for much less (less than half the cost, or more than $200 cheaper).  Other than the name on the side, I don’t think there’s much difference in the frames, and there is almost certainly no difference in the prescriptions (with one caveat).

So I am very happy with my experience.

This is what I did:

- Got an eye exam from a qualified optometrist (actually, an opthamologist, but either one works).  I made them write down clearly what all the numbers were and identify them.  I don’t have astigmatism, so there are only the two numbers for me (my prescription is different in each eye), but you can get glasses for astigmatism and for bifocals online.  Just make sure they write down the whole prescription for you.

- Asked for my PD or pupillary distance.  This is usually measured by the person working in the frame shop.  It is measured in millimeters.  If you have bifocals, you should have two of them, I think.

- Did my research.

- Ordered one pair from Zenni just to check the quality, as a tryout.  (These were really trendy red frames.)

- Ordered a second pair from Zenni because they were cute.

- Ordered the more expensive brand-name pair from Coolframes.com because I loved them in the store and wanted a new pair of everyday black frames.

Okay, so here’s the research part:

I have a giant melon of a head, or so it seems to me.  I always have to get giant hats because normal ones don’t really fit me.  And I have had glasses that were too small for my head before, and they cut into my temples and were totally uncomfortable.  I do not want to go back that direction.

But it’s hard to tell online what glasses will fit and what will not.  And that is why they have sizing information on the frames sold online and on the frames they sell in the store.  I didn’t know this!  I’ve been wearing glasses for 24 years and I never knew that there was sizing information.

So I went to LensCrafters and Pearle Vision and I tried on a stack of frames, making mental notes as to the size range that seems to work.  It became clear that the temple length (the temple arm is the part that goes from your face to your ear) didn’t matter too much for me, personally, but I needed a lens width (the measurement of the width of the lens itself) of at least 53mm or a total width of 139mm, and the bigger the better.

Even with the measurements, it’s not perfect.  Some of the temple arms bow out from the sides so they fit looser than the measurements suggest.  Sometimes they have a very small bridge width so they might be tighter than the measurements suggest.  But I got a good sense of it from trying on a lot of items at the stores.

Then I went online and browsed and considered a lot of different frame styles, and eventually made a selection.  And I have been very happy with the way it all worked out.

Other than the sizing, the other issue is choosing the lens itself.  There are lots of options.  One option is to select high indexing, which is a process by which they make a strong prescription with thinner lenses.  This costs more, but it means that your frames aren’t as heavy and there isn’t a Coke-bottle effect.  I have had high indexing for a long time, but there are several options as to how thin the lenses are, and this was the caveat I mentioned above.  I went with 1.61 indexing on the Zenni lenses, and 1.67 on the Coolframes.com, all of which appear to be slightly different than my old glasses from LensCrafters.  When I switch between the glasses, there’s a moment where I have to readjust my depth perception and my focusing because the lens thickness affects this quite a lot.  But it’s very minor.  Overall, I don’t sense much difference between my old Ray-Bans and my new Ray-Bans and my two pairs of off-brand Zenni glasses.  Maybe after some wear, it will be more apparent.

And, yes!  They have swimming goggles and wind goggles and you can put sunglass tint on any pair of glasses, which is pretty awesome.  I paid nearly $500 for my last pair of prescription sunglasses, which makes me not want to wear them out of fear that I will break them.  (Obviously I don’t have vision insurance.)  $40 for prescription sunglasses is cheap enough that I wouldn’t have heartburn for a week if they fell off a boat or the side of a mountain or something.  (You know, when I am out boating or mountain-climbing, as I do.)  It wouldn’t be nearly as painful to lose them.  And it’s good for your eyes to wear them, so there’s that too.

So, this is me recommending getting your glasses online.  The cost difference is enormous, but I am very happy with the results.