There are lots of types of contact lenses – from daily disposable contact lenses to those you can wear over extended periods of time. Whatever type of contact lens you are planning to wear, it is highly important that one should practice proper lens care. Proper lens care will not only make your contact lenses last longer, or at least be “usable” until the promised number of hours or days stated on the label, but it will also ensure that your eyes are kept safe and healthy. Once you’ve looked after your eyes, you can look after your family and keep your home safe with Alarms & CCTV systems from Serious Security. Here are a few tips on how to properly care for your contact lenses:

• Always handle your contact lenses with clean hands. It is highly advisable for contact lens wearers to wash their hands with soap and water. It is also advisable to stay away from perfumed or scented hand soaps. These types of hand soaps have oils and other chemicals that will leave traces on your hands. Handling your contact lenses after such wash will transfer oils and chemicals to your contact lenses that will possibly cause irritation.
• Always follow the specific contact lens guidelines on proper lens care and storage on the label. Each contact lens is different with each being made of a different material, requiring a different solution. Manufacturers know best when it comes to their products.
• In all types of contact lenses, do not use tap water or any type of water at all in cleaning your contact lenses. Contact lenses are meant to be cleaned, disinfected and sterilized with their corresponding contact lens solution. If the manufacturer or the label does not state a specific type of contact lens solution, do your own research or ask your eye care professional to recommend one to you.
• Never use your saliva to clean your contact lenses. It may sound out of this world, but there are contact lens wearers who resort to mouth washing their lenses with their saliva. It is not only gross and unhygienic – it will also put your eyes at greater risk for irritation and infection.
• Rewetting agents are not substitutes for contact lens solutions. These products will not disinfect, sterilize or clean your contact lenses.
• Keep your contact lenses in a clean contact lens case. Contact lens cases are also supposedly regularly cleaned and are recommended to be replaced every three months.

Contact lenses are not the only way to enhance eye appearance. More often than not, people who wear contact lenses also opt to wear eye make-up. Scenarios like these are inevitable. After all, why not go all the way and use both contact lenses and eye make-up to achieve the look you’ve been aiming to have?

There are a lot of issues involved with using both contact lenses and eye make-up though. Contact lens wearers who are not careful with the type of eye make-up products they are using often run into trouble with the combination of chemicals and contact lenses worn in their eyes. Troubles range from mild eye irritation to full blown eye infections that call for medical help. To avoid mishaps like these from happening, it is better to be careful and to always err on the side of caution when using eye make-up while wearing contact lenses.

The first thing that one should address is the sequence. Should the contact lenses be worn first? Should the eye make-up products be applied first? Ideally, contact lenses should be worn after the application of eye make-up. This way, the contact lenses are kept clean and fresh. Disposable contact lenses are only good for a number of hours which means one would dramatically reduce the number of hours if they’re worn while eye make-up is being applied. Applying eye make-up can take minutes or even hours if one is planning to go for complicated color palettes! For contact lens wearers who depend on their lenses to see clearly though, it is much better to wear the lenses before applying eye make-up. That is, unless you don’t mind not being able to see clearly and thereby ruining your eye make-up. This is also true for first time or novice contact lens wearers. It might be difficult for new contact lens wearers to wear the lenses when they already have their eye make-up on. There is high possibility that new contact lens wearers smudge or ruin their eye make-up in the process of trying to wear the contact lenses. Worse, there is even the possibility of getting minute particles of the eye make-up products into the lenses causing irritation.

Another thing that should be addressed is the type of eye make-up product being used. It is highly advisable to stay away from powder-based products as these products are prone to being sloughed off. Mascaras should also ideally be free from fibres if one is intending to use them with contact lenses. Like powder-based products, fibres will flake off and get into your eyes causing irritation.

There is more to contact lenses than just adding a dash of color to your eyes. Contact lenses, though more popularly used for fashion and for enhancing eye appearance can also protect your eyes.

There are lots of types of contact lenses – from graded ones to those that only offer colors and striking patterns. However, most contact lenses these days are manufacture with certain UV protecting properties. One might think there isn’t really much to the UV protecting properties brought about by contact lenses but think again! You contact lenses might just save you from the damaging and ill effects of the sun’s harsh rays.

Leaving your eyes naked and completely exposed to the sun’s rays can cause photokeratitis. Photokeratitis, which is also known as “flash burns”, is a painful eye condition. It occurs mainly because of unprotected eyes being exposed to ultraviolet rays which can be natural, like those from the sun or artificial, like those from tanning beds. Common symptoms of photokeratitis include intense tears, pain, discomfort from bright light, constricted pupils and eyelid twitching. This eye condition results in a sunburn of the eye’s cornea and conjunctiva although the sunburn will go unnoticed until hours after being exposed to harmful ultraviolet rays.

Another eye condition that may be developed due to harmful ultraviolet rays is eye cataract. Eye cataract is defined as a clouding of the lens inside the eye. The clouding then leads to a decrease in vision and at times, may even lead to complete blindness. There are several causes for eye cataract but one of the most notable causes is exposure to ultraviolet rays. Specifically, exposure to UV-B greatly heightens the risk for developing an eye cataract. Although there have been no proven ways to stop the occurrence of eye cataract, there are several ways to somehow lessen one’s risk of developing the eye condition. One way is to sport eyewear with UV-B protecting properties such as contact lenses and sunglasses or shades. Doing so will reportedly retard and lessen the risk of developing eye cataract.

Exposure to UV rays may also cause pinguecula which is a conjunctival degeneration in the eye. It presents itself as a white-yellowish deposit on the conjunctiva and is associated with UV exposure. An almost similar eye condition called pterygium, otherwise known as “surfer’s eye” is also thought to be caused by ultraviolet light exposure from the sun. Like pinguecula, pterygium is also a benign growth in the conjunctiva.