Archive for November, 2010

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Celeb Watch Early Winter 2010

Monday, November 29th, 2010

Oooh- time to wrap up warm Celeb Watchers, the sparkly season will soon be upon us, and thank the good Lord for giving us decorated Jimmy Choo UGGs and rain proof mascara. While we snuggle into our chunky knits and mourn the loss of number one on our most wanted man list (You go Kate –congratulations on finally bagging your very own handsome price!) It’s time to make our Christmas lists. We’ve been really good girls this year Santa baby, so you’re definitely going to bring us just what we want……..that’s one order of Johnny Depp, a side of Brad Pitt, and let’s choose some yummy sunnies to shield us from the nosy papps…..

Victoria Beckham – VB is so having a fashion moment – loving her more than ever right now – the perfect dress, the sleek hair, the pearl encrusted shoes, and what sunnies – from her own collection we presume, huge, black, mysterious, and she’s got David!!! How can one woman be so lucky?!!!!

Cheryl Cole – Aside the fashion blip of the Minnie Mouse hair (Chezza – what were you thinking?!!!) this girl can’t put a foot wrong – a subtle variation on VB’s look, still black and huge, but an interesting angular shape that’s lush with her delicate face shape.

Brad Pitt – Quite frankly even in that beard he still looked scrumptious, so he doesn’t have to work too hard, but in a funky rounded aviator with interesting chunky sides he looked pretty cool.

Olivia Palermo – Tres chic in an overgrown Wayfarer, this is the week for the blackest of black plastics for the girls, in an interesting array of shapes. Nice work Olivia!

Hmmm – no brainer then, a chunky dark plastic it is, but without the Minnie Mouse do and we’re not sure orange is our colour…….maybe we need a slinky blue Issa dress to bag our very own Prince, after all Harry is still on the market……

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A New Era

Sunday, November 28th, 2010

New technology is moving at a frightening pace nowadays, with every aspect of our lives going through new and exciting changes. Even if you’re a bit of a techno-phobe and you haven’t got your i-pad in one hand and your i-phone in the other, you may one day be glad of the newest advances in optics……..

Researchers at St Andrews University believe that they are on the way to finding the perfect contact lens material – a flexible new smart material that they will be able to modify to use in many different situations. Their focus (!) is on disposable lenses, and creating a lens that will enhance vision.

If you love 3D TV but hate wearing ridiculous specs, then there’s hope for you in the development of new light field display. While we expected specs free 3D to arrive during the next ten years, Toshiba have already announced that this new technology will be available much sooner. Light field display is an imaging system which creates the 3D effect, causing less eye strain and making the 3D image change with the viewer’s position.

Clinical trials begin in the UK next year on sub-retinal implants to aid in the treatment of the eye disease Retinitis Pigmentosa. This hereditary disease has no cure at present, and leads to progressive deterioration in sight. Retina implants microchip has been proven to restore a level of useful vision to patients during trials overseas, so we’re looking forward to seeing the results here over the next few months.

A new drug has been approved for use in the treatment of children born with Glaucoma. Xalatan 0.005% reduces the raised pressure in the eyes of these children, who formerly had no specific drugs approved to help them. While drug treatment can’t reverse vision loss due to glaucoma, it can help to preserve the sight they do have.

So whatever your eye health or sight issues, take comfort from ongoing research and the constant innovation that goes on, it might just help you some day soon!

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Casing the Joint

Saturday, November 27th, 2010

The side joints of frames are tiny little parts of our lives that we ignore until something goes wrong with them! They work hard for us every day, so take a little time to take care of them, and they’ll carry on doing their job for you!

Frames that we sell have one of two types of joint, with springs in or not! The non-sprung side is lighter weight, neat and unobtrusive, and usually absolutely do the job for most people. They usually consist of three interlocking teeth, which hold a screw in place. We’re often asked, why screws? They can be irritating as they can work loose, causing untold annoyance and much experimenting with sellotape and bent paper clips. Actually you need screws so that if you damage a joint, side or frame front, we can easily fit a replacement. If the frame is discontinued, and we can’t replace parts, we may have to actually solder a new joint in place, which is the commonest repair in our workshop.

Spring loaded sides flex backwards, so they’re ideal if you’re a little rough on your glasses! They hold their shape really well, and are very useful on children’s frames. They are however a little bulky, and are sometimes too heavy for very slim frame sides.

If the screws in your frame constantly work loose, you can tighten them yourself, with a small screwdriver, but make sure you hold a cloth across the lens, or a nasty scratch can appear! Of course you may need specs to see to repair your specs! So if it’s too tricky, ask an able bodied friend or seek the help of your nearest optician. Most do not charge for simple repairs. Never over-tighten screws, and if they turn but do not tighten, get them replaced before the frame side drops off! Maintaining the joints is easier than looking for replacement parts. If joints stiffen however – and don’t they all over time! – a tiny drop of oil eased into the hinge will work wonders.

Take a look at the joints every so often, and get screws looked at if you think they’re not holding their position or are very tight. Prevention is better than cure, and it’s easier than trying to make the perfect repair with duct tape, plasters, or whatever else you have to hand!

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A Tear to the Eye

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

With the pre-winter winds blowing, we’re wrapping up warm against the cold and bracing ourselves for chilly days. An annoying problem that affects many patients is excessive eye watering, which can make the skin sore and make the eye itself feel gritty and sore. If you’re a sufferer, you’ll know how annoying and uncomfortable this can be.

If the onset of watering eyes is sudden, then visit your GP. It could be a reaction due to an allergy or an eye infection. In the case of allergy, you need to isolate the cause – have you changed you eye make up or skin care, washing powder, or acquired a new pet? In the case of infection, the GP will need to identify the type – bacterial or viral. In all cases drops will help. Halt contact wear until the problem is solved, as problems with the tears affects the surface of the eye, and your lenses may even dry out, as the tear layer balance is disrupted.

If you have sensitive eyes, then windy weather will cause eye watering, and you may need to invest in specs with a larger lens area and a in a more wrap-around style. This will keep the wind out and even add a dash of style! A tinted lens may also help, as it soothes your eyes and cuts low sun glare that may be contributing to your problem. Try not to constantly wipe the eyes, which will make your skin sore, and discuss with your GP in case drops or eye bathing will help.

As we age, the skin around the eyes can droop, and the lack of contact between the lower lid and the eye surface can make the eyes water. The blink action in the healthy eye sweeps tears across the surface of the eye ball, cleansing, lubricating and sterilising. If the lids aren’t working properly then the system breaks down and the eye isn’t cared for properly. Surgery to correct the lids may be suitable, or again, drops will restore the tear film.

So don’t ignore watery eyes, it can lead to severe discomfort and even affect your sight. Nip it in the bud and hope for tears of joy instead!

Glasses Online

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Full Colour

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

The trends for frame colour this year have reflected the mood of the nation – safe, not outrageous, clinging to the notion of austerity and a lack of frivolity. We’ve seen muted tones, less detail and bling, and simple finishes. But is the outlook better for next year? Will we be adjusting to the cuts and loosening those tightened belts a little? Fashion trends suggest that the outlook may be just a little bit brighter…….

Colour is everywhere in the new collections for Spring/Summer 2011, in bold swathes or subtle lining or colour blocks. Even shades we’ve not seen for a while – bright purple, yellow, red and turquoise are peeking out to tantalise us and give us a bold new look for the new year.

Sunglasses have been flirting with colour for a while now, and while we avoided them for most ophthalmic frames, they were in the sidelines on sunnies. Translucent brown and black that then looked coloured in the sunlight were one trend, and for next season they’re going the whole hog with completely out there, strong, bright colour.

Pattern is big news too, with wild prints stamped on the frame or encased in plastics materials. The former can be bright and definite; the latter can be ethereal and subtle. Or used as a lining, pattern can be a fashion statement that you keep to yourself if you wish!

If strong colour is too daring for you, then those investment classics of tortoiseshell and black are still featured in every collection. It may not be exciting but it is bold, and it’s a seasonal favourite that you know you can wear year after year. Or keep traditional for work wear and save your wild colours for wild nights out!

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Just keep an open mind, have fun trying the new season look to see how it suits you, and think about injecting some colour into your world!

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Scratch the Surface

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

99.9% of the lenses we use today are plastic, and plenty of patients still remember the bad old days when plastic meant murky, battered lenses and poor vision. Plastic was seen as a poor relation to glass, with sub-standard quality and an easily damaged surface. Nowadays happily, plastic is our material of choice, being lightweight, safe, and protected with anti-scratch hard layers. You must note though that these protective coatings make the lenses scratch resistant, not scratch proof. You can still scuff your lenses and affect your vision adversely if you’re not careful, and mostly it’s easy to see how a lens has been damaged. Here are the most common scratch patterns, and how they occur:

Circular scratches all over the lens: This is due to polishing the lenses and rubbing little gritty particles into the surface as you clean. Been on the beach? Pottering around in the garden or doing some sanding? Then your specs will have abrasive dust all over them. Wash the specs under running water before you go near them with a cloth, making sure water is sluiced all over the lens. Then dry on a soft, clean, lint free towel and polish with a spec lens polishing cloth.

Stripes scratched down the centre of the lens: This is due to laying glasses face down. Lenses are curved, and when you lay them face down they rock on the surface and will scratch over time. Rest them on their sides, or put away in the case.

Deep random scratches: These are due to accidental damage, which may be an errant twig or cupboard door, or even something left stored in your spec case. Accidents obviously happen, but you can make sure you don’t put anything in the case – not keys or emery boards as shamefaced patients have confessed in the past!

Once a lens is scratched, you can’t repair the damage – you need a new lens. So keep an old prescription or invest in a budget pair of glasses for DIY or work in the garden. Wash specs in warm soapy water, and use a polishing cloth to then get rid of stubborn smears. You’re protecting your own investment, so make a bit of effort to keep your specs up to scratch!

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Winter Coat

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

With the sun getting lower and the nights getting longer, driving can be a worry for some people. If you wear glasses, dazzle and glare during the winter can be more of a problem than bright sun in the summer. The only thing that can help is an anti-reflection coating, which we recommend and offer on our lenses, and many clients enquire about them. It seems timely to talk about them now, as many of you update your glasses for safe driving during the coming months.

An anti-reflection coating is not like a tinted lens, in that it doesn’t add colour to the lens, nor does it cut down the light entering the eye. It’s actually almost invisible, and you can usually only see it on the back surface if you tilt the lens under bright light. Then you see a coloured shimmer, like oil on water, and this residual colour is usually a greeny-blue. The purpose of the coating is to let as much visible light as possible through to the eye. Without the coating, some light gets reflected back when you look around you, and this interferes with your vision.

With an anti-reflection layer added to your lenses, you get many benefits. Sight is clearer and sharper, and under artificial light your eyes feel more comfortable. Computer users always report that their eyes feel less tired, and it’s the only thing that helps with night driving, reducing the dazzle effect of oncoming headlights. Without the coating headlights can seem like a confusion of multiple lights, with it you can see what’s coming towards you and have more sense of the distances involved. It also lets people see you clearly, because you can look straight through them and it almost looks as if there are no lenses there.

On higher lens powers, particularly if you are short sighted, your specs will also look better with the coating. It helps to reduce those unsightly white reflection rings that appear around the edges of your lenses, giving rise to the dreaded bottle bottom effect. A winner all round, the best winter coat you’ll ever choose!

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Going Glam to Geek

Saturday, November 13th, 2010

My eyewear has always been a thing of beauty, with enough bling, sparkle, glitter and glam to make Elton envious.  The more diamante, colour, embedded precious metals and stones the better, and no frame was too fancy. On a trip to the city in the summer, I did however start to feel a little over dressed in my Prada with added pizzazz – black plastic, encrusted with square cut crystals – as I noticed the eyewear of skinny bright young things around me. Where were the details? Where were the outrageous sides studded with shimmer? Everyone was in cool, chic, and above all, plain frames.

I studied this phenomenon, and then turned to the trusty pages of Vogue to look at the eye wear ads. In tune with austerity measures and classic tailoring for clothes, specs were heading the same way. Stripped down, with bold rectangular shapes and colour doing the talking. With a trip to the West end coming up in November, I got online and got ordering, Vogue clutched in my hand for guidance. Get me to the Geek!

The specs duly arrived and I didn’t unpack them with my usual excitement. No light hitting a swathe of stars and flowers. Just a shiny tortoiseshell plastic with a subtle mottle, and teeny gold rivets at the edges. I put them on. At least I could see, and the slightly deeper shape was actually more practical and made my eyes look bigger. I added more mascara and braved the streets. And then I was very pleasantly surprised. Friends were actually impressed and very complimentary. I can see your eyes! I hated that Dame Edna thing you always did (Why did nobody say this before?!!) It makes me notice you, not the specs!

A month on, I’m loving the new look and now have it in red, purple and black too. It feels clean and fresh and makes me concentrate more on makeup, accessories and interesting additions like scarves, all of which I kept to minimum, letting my specs do the talking, or rather screaming! I flash a bit of bling for a night out, but I love this pared down daywear look. Sorry Dame Edna, you’re on your own………

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Raising the Standard

Friday, November 12th, 2010

As with any other area of our lives, optics and the products we supply have come a long way in recent years. Glasses have gone from a medical device that we all dreaded being prescribed, to a must have accessory that gives us a sliver of the designer lifestyle and enhances our looks. Spectacle lenses are now thinner, lighter, work better and look better thanks to coating technology. Contact lenses are easier to wear, more flexible – both in the lenses themselves and how we wear them! So are you taking advantage of all this innovation and new technology in your eyewear?

Spectacle frames now give you more choice, more comfort, and competitive prices. New materials make frames lighter weight and easier to wear, even in chunky bold fashion frames. Replacement parts are easy to obtain, making mouldy nose pads and broken frames a thing of the past. (RIP Jack Duckworth – we’ll miss you!) You can even choose skin friendly Titanium if you have an allergic reactions to frames, and sinus sufferers can escape the agony of heavy glasses on sensitive faces. If you have problems with your frames, e-mail us and we can offer some practical solutions, and all as cheap as chips nowadays!

Back in the day, high density thin lenses were an expensive luxury for those with sore noses thanks to high lens powers. Now however we recognise the superior strength and better optics of a thinner lens, and as the price has decreased everyone can afford it if they need it. For sports, safety, or just frivolous fashion, the thinner lens can make spec wear and therefore life in general much easier. They are a must for rimless specs, and ultra skinny metals. Hard coatings for scratch resistant are now standard nearly everywhere, and anti-reflection coatings make your lenses look good and work at their optimum.

Contact lenses, once the choice for only the very rich, hardy and desperate, are now a lifestyle choice that everybody can wear. They are high water content, barely there, and new materials are launched with exciting regularity. You can use them for a month, a week, even just a day, with simple cleaning regimes that make the chemistry- lab- bathroom- shelf a thing of the past! Just keep a few one-days for tennis at the weekends, a city break or that special night out.

Technology is all around us, and optics is no exception. Take advantage and make life easier, more comfortable, and certainly clearer!

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Progressive Pros and Cons

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

For many clients, the biggest change to their sight through their whole life time is the sudden need for reading glasses. The simple joy of picking something up and seeing the detail instantly becomes a scrabble round for lost specs, squinting, or desperately trying to hold things far enough away to see them! For some, this can be mid-life crisis point – the first sign that time is taking its toll on your body!!

But it happens to everyone, and although there is a variation in timing and how you cope with it, most people will need a separate reading lens power at some point during their forties – fifties. If you don’t have a desk job, and no distance prescription, then you’ll cope for a while with reading specs that you put on when you need them – when you can find them that is! But for many there comes the dreaded moment when you really need to be able to read at your convenience, not just when your specs allow you to. Time to progress to progressives!

A progressive lens gives you different lens powers within a single lens, doing the job your eyes did, in a fairly natural and very comfortable way. You can sit at your desk, read small print, see the screen, and keep an eye on everything going on in the room around you! You can cook from a recipe by being able to see the instructions, the writing on food packets and things on your shelves. You can drive and see the dashboard, the road signs, and everything going on around you. What’s not to like?!

These lenses do need a period of adjustment, so put your old specs away, and just wear the progressives. You might need to slightly adjust your computer screen distance, or your car seat for total comfort. Your peripheral vision might feel odd at first. Turn your head fully to face what you want to look at. Within a day or two you’ll forget they are there, and wonder how you ever coped without them! Accept the change in your vision, embrace your progressives, and get on with your life without focussing on a natural evolution in your body. Fifty is the new thirty, so make the most of it and be thankful for a simple solution to an age old problem!

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