Caprig's Full Review: Ciba Vision Freshlook Radiance Contact Lens
Life has been really hard lately.
My husband has been out of a job since his company closed.
We've both been sick with a touch of the flu for a week or so.
The stress has made life difficult because of all of the disturbed schedules and habits.
When the weather was nice, I decided that something had to be done to bring up my mood. The sun was out, the weather was warm enough to sit outside, so I decided to do something fun.
I put in my FRESHLOOK RADIANCE CONTACT LENSES in my new color I had gotten called EDEN.
I grimaced as I looked at my haggard face in the mirror. Man, I felt horrible. I popped in my new sparkly green lenses and peered in the mirror again to inspect....
Nothing.
Nothing?
I ran to my husband who was wandering in circles muttering about all of the things he had to do but doing nothing because he was too busy muttering and walking in circles....
"Honey, look at my new eyes!" I exclaimed proudly.
He peered into my eyes.
"What new eyes? They look the same."
I became agitated. "Look again, there has to be SOME difference."
What followed was a series of relocations at various windows around the house as the bedraggled stressed man tried in vain to see these new wonderful sparkly lenses that I was convinced that he had to see.
Finally we went outside in the sun. THAT oughta make the lenses show up. After all, sparkles ALWAYS show up in the sunlight. That is what the optician told me.
What they don't tell you is that when you are in the sun squinting, no one can even see your eyes let alone the contact lenses IN them.
The next half hour was spent with my confused husband trying to comfort me as I sobbed about my stupid new contact lenses that no one could see.
Then the next half hour was spent sobbing about everything that had been going wrong lately.
This was going nowhere fast- SOMETHING had to be done.
TIME TO CELEBRATE MY INVISIBLE CONTACTS
My husband looked over at the grill and said that we should have a cookout and try to forget all of our troubles.
I perked right up at the idea. THAT would be so fun.
So we spent the next hour or so preparing haddock reserved for a special occasion in our freezer. We made some other luscious food, but by the time we were ready to eat, it had grown dark.
Eagerly, we lit lanterns and candles and prepared to enjoy a rare still warmish night in our rural country home on the deck. The wind is usually blowing.
I was starting to get very excited about this new adventure. I remembered our pyrotechnic son telling me once that he put the Morning Glory sparklers (giant sparklers) that I had bought a long time ago in a bag on the top storage shelf in our food storage hallway.
WHAT FUN! I would get those to celebrate and lift our spirits. Quickly I ran in and grabbed the bag that was just as he left them. (he was not home, so I was going on memory here)
With great relish, I poked each sparkler into the dirt of the deck planters all around the perimeter of the porch. We were all grinning in pleasure as I ran quickly with the lighter and lit up a bunch of the sparklers.
The beautiful sparks of the initial run of the sparklers all showed up simultaneously around the porch. I ran quickly to my seat in anticipation of the lovely effect.
Suddenly the sparkler began to sputter and then flew off into space with a huge explosion. The force of the one knocked over the others and they all began a chain reaction of multi-directional chaos.
Before we had a chance to process mentally what was happening, rockets were shooting all around the porch. As my daughter and I dove for cover on the deck, my husband stood up in shock to cover his face from a flying missile. As he did so, another rocket headed straight for his armpit.
"DAD, FLAP YOUR ARMS! FLAP YOUR ARMS!!!!"
Oblivious to his flaming armpit he did not see the rocket ricochet down into his pocket of his coat.
"FLAP YOUR ARMS QUICK! YOU ARE ON FIRE!"
As the words sank into his brain, he looked down and in horror began to flap his arms wildly like a bird with poison ivy.
Eventually the flames went out and he grabbed the new flashlight that needs no batteries, but only to be wound up. Really fast, he wound up the handle as he tried to turn on the flashlight to inspect the damage to his brand new $200 coat that he had gotten on clearance a few months before.
We all were bending close to the jacket to see the damage.
When he hit the switch, a male voice started hollering ," PROVE TO ME THAT THE ARK OF THE COVENANT DID EXIST."
We all jumped about ten feet in the air and looked around wildly to see who was there now. We were half expecting a psycho killer with an Indiana Jones fetish brandishing a weapon to hold us hostage until we proved his statement.
Apparently, this flashlight has a hidden radio in it.
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If you are not interested in the story, skip to here- this is where the nitty gritty begins.
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WHAT ARE THESE RADIANCE CONTACT LENSES LIKE?
If you have been following the adventures of caprig and the contact lenses that I have been writing in my reviews, you will know that I have been experimenting with colored contact lenses.
I am a makeup artist who loves to change my look radically for fun on a consistent basis. I have tried all of the other lines of FRESHLOOK CONTACT LENSES and RADIANCE was my final journey into colored lenses.
Sparkles.
FRESHLOOK RADIANCE CONTACT LENSES are sparkle lenses. There are four colors.
EDEN- aqua green sparkles
SUNRISE- silver-gold sparkles
AUTUMN - gold sparkles
MOONLIGHT- silver sparkles
Each color has a dark ring around the outside and random metallic sparkles around the iris area. The effect is supposed to be magical.
It is magic all right. Voila! No one can see anything.
When I had tried these lenses on in the doctor's office, the Eden lenses looked really pretty. The sparkles showed up nicely and I was very impressed.
The Moonlight had a ghostly look and barely showed up. Autumn was pretty - a nice golden effect. Sunrise did not seem to do much for my eyes. It was all right, but looked like a little warmer version of Moonlight.
However,outside in the REAL world, the lenses look different. As you can see from the beginning of my tale of craziness, the Eden lenses do not show up at all in any light.
By the way, I have hazel/green eyes.
CONTENT
45% phemfilcon with UV absorbing chromophores
55% water
SOLUTIONS
You can use most of the contact solutoins with these lenses. They are not like the OASYS which works best with OPTI-FREE solution. I use OPTI-FREE solution with these.
MY COMMENTS
I was very upset when I saw that these lenses did not even show up (betcha didn't know that did you- HAHA ). FRESHLOOK lenses are not the best lenses I have worn. They tend to slide around and occasionally get blurry as the move through the eye. If I wanted to wear a very comfortable crisp vision lens, I would wear my Oasys lenses.
But if I want to have fun with color, I can endure the inconsistency of the FRESHLOOK lenses. They are adequate and I am getting used to the variations in sight with them.
However, with no color gain, they are not satisfying to me to wear.
FINAL COMMENTS
I have a pair of Autumn lenses that I plan on trying, and considered trying the Moonlight for fun, but I might just avoid this line of Freshlook lenses all together and concentrate on the other more dramatic color changing lenses.
If you want subtle changes, this line might be for you. My recommendation is that you bring your empty contact case and take home the sample lenses. Try them on again at home BEFORE you order. They look completely different at home and outside than they do in the office.
My vision is pretty good with these- they are not as bad as when I first tried these lenses. However, if you are very fond of crisp clear vision, these might not be for you.
I am still giving these a 4 star rating because some of the colors are really beautiful and the lenses do well with me after I wear them and get used to them for a while.
However, if the color does not show up, I would prefer a regular pair that is more comfortable and crisp in vision like ACUVUE OASYS.
WHERE TO GET MORE INFORMATION
You can buy these lenses at most optician's offices. I find that the best prices tend to be at Sam's club where I purchased my lenses for $26 a box (give or take some cents).
Another thing that you might not be aware of is that anyone can attend the Sam's Optical department- you do not have to be a member.
It is against the law to discriminate membership for health services like optometry.
For more information about what contact lenses are available in the FRESHLOOK lens series, you can go to:
www.freshlookcontacts.com
EPILOGUE
By the way, you might be interested to know that when we finally got over our shock and my husband was able to make his way into the house, there was no damage at all to his coat. That was nothing short of a miracle.
That is a good thing, because he would have given the term *hot pocket* a whole new meaning.
And now he has been dubbed *Rocket Man* and it will be a long time before he will live that one down (says the pyromaniac who almost killed him).
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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