Real Glass Lenses for Eyeglasses: Why it’s Still Worth Considering Over Plastic

If you’re old enough to remember wearing glasses decades ago, you probably remember glass being the primary resource used on prescription eyewear. The reason was due to various quality elements you can’t get in other materials. Unfortunately, far too many people thought glass lenses as a liability because of the weight. As we reached the 21st century, the tendency was toward making everything lighter.

While we’ve evolved toward many technologies becoming smaller and easy to carry, eyewear had to follow suit. People who needed to wear glasses for long hours didn’t like the weight of glass on their heads. As a result, eyewear manufacturers had to come up with a lighter solution.

Ultimately, this gave birth to plastic lenses, which ended up bringing immediate pros and major cons.

Despite plastic lenses feeling better on a person’s face, they don’t provide some of the protections and features glass lenses do.

Here’s why real glass lenses for eyeglasses are still worth considering in a plastic and polycarbonate world.

Higher Indexes

You’ve likely heard about high-index lenses, though still haven’t investigated those either. One thing you’ll discover if you decide to go with plastic lenses is you can’t enjoy high indexes like you can with glass.

High-index lenses give a higher index of refraction, meaning it helps bend light rays to get clearer vision when needing stronger prescription glasses. Only glass lenses provide this for superior optical quality.

It’s worth thinking about if you have a job requiring the utmost in eyewear clarity. Even though glass is definitely heavier to wear and can break more easily, careful usage gives you the best optics on the market.

Scratch Resistance

Just because glass might break easier doesn’t mean it still isn’t sturdy in other ways. Plastic lenses don’t have nearly the scratch resistance level glass does. Some plastic lenses can get scratch prevention, though it costs extra money you may not want to spend.

Since glass lenses are already less costly than polycarbonate options, you don’t have to spend extra money to get automatic scratch protection. This is important if you work around objects or people in your job where scratching could become a consistent problem.

When you need to depend on your lenses staying optimal without a scratch potentially obscuring your sight, glass is still around to help you.

Better Bifocals and Trifocals

Yet another benefit behind lenses made of glass is having cleaner and less noticeable edges. Relying on bifocals and trifocals are already an issue when used in the workplace. Having to fight with edging when trying to read something up-close or far away is a common problem with plastic lenses. In the plastic lens market, no one’s yet come up with a satisfactory way to reduce this problem.

A cleaner lens on bifocals can do wonders to reduce stress when needing to use these glasses for hours in a work setting.

Keeping Your Glass Lenses Over Time

No doubt you’ve found yourself having to replace your plastic lenses more often due to the problem of yellowing over time. Glass holds up for years without any deterioration, meaning you probably won’t have to replace them any time soon as long as you keep them from breaking.

The better news is because only a small fraction of eyewear makers make glass lenses today, you can get good bargains on buying them. In contrast, a polycarbonate lens generally costs more than glass and plastic combined.

At Rx-Safety, we can give you a glass lens option again to prove the benefits mentioned above, plus much more.

Contact us to find out about our comprehensive collection of eyewear to help you make a good decision for your own unique situation.