Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?
Written: Jan 24 '02 (Updated Jan 24 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Let's you temporarily change your eye color.
Cons: But not all that well.
The Bottom Line: Value-priced for those who want color change and durability without much realism. Acceptable, but better choices, as noted, are out there.
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| kcfoxy's Full Review: Wesley Jessen Durasoft 2 Opaque Colors Contact Len... |
Babies are born with blue eyes that change within a few months to their ultimate, pre-determined color. Like Mendel and his peas, blue is a recessive eye color and brown is dominant. And sometimes plain brown eyes can seem awfully dull.
Deciding once and for all, to make the leap to having my own set of ole blue eyes, I made an appointment to see my opthamologist regarding the possibility of contact lenses. I won't bore you with my painfully brief first experience with semi-rigid Boston lenses, except to say I was never meant to have clear tiddlywinks inserted into my eyes!
After trial and error it was determined I would need daily wear contacts the sort that are removed, cleansed and disinfected daily and given a weekly enzyme treatment. All this after 8 to 18 hours of daily wear
Wesley Jessen Durasoft 2 Opaque Color Contact Lenses
Wesley Jessen is a giant in an industry of a dozen or so contact lens manufacturers, and foremost in the invention and refinement of colored contacts. I bought my first pair in 1990 after seeing a Lynda Carter commercial where she touted violet orbs a la Liz Taylor.
This first Durasoft® manifestation produced very fake looking contacts, with a single striated color over the iris, (pigmented) part of your eye and clear centers over the pupil, or part that you actually see out of. If you take a good look at your eyes under sufficient light you will see a darker outer ring, with radiating lines of color, and a small lighter starburst of color surrounding the pupil's ebony depths. (The very best, newer contacts emulate this quite nicely, as you will see below).
This is most prominent on hazel or gray eyes but nowhere to be found on either the Durasoft prototype, or sadly enough on the Durasoft 2 Opaque Colors Contact Lenses. Now look up at my Epinions profile picture. If my blue-violet contacts look cloudy/opaque, (read: with that troubling milky white quality so similar to a condition known as cataracts), you will see what I mean. People these things look fake!
Stare In My Limpid Pools of...Plastic!
You may be familiar with disposable contacts, which are rated for either daily, 1-2 weeks or monthly use. The difference between these mid-water contacts and my conventional daily wear type, which are low-water, is the ratio of water to plastic polymer, or in the case of Wesley Jessen, what's usually known as phemfilcon A.
With disposable contacts, the ratio is a hydrophilic 45% polymer/55% water. With these daily use babies, the ratio changes to 62%/38%.
Herein lies the trade-off: Disposable contacts are slightly more comfortable but definitely less durable, while my Durasoft 2 Opaque Color ones are touted to last up to 12 months, and are useful for those of us less than gentle with our insertion/cleaning/disinfecting/enzyming routines. You'll also be stuck with a color you may loathe, opting for daily use types.
Overall, plan to spend about 3 times as much for the convenience of disposible lenses, over convention type.
You can expect to pay $35.00-$65.00 per lens for this product, where a more natural looking, disposable contact such as Wesley Jensen's Freshlook Colorblends, (rated up to about 2 weeks use, if handled gently, no violent sneezing, et al.), will run you $28.00-$50.00 for a box of 6 lenses!
In their favor, Durasoft 2 Opaque Color contacts are easy to insert and remove, and hold up pretty well. Mine last around 9 months, with average care, and it is the perception of slightly reduced eye comfort rather than any visible degradation that causes me to purchase another pair each time.
I have a mild case of those wavy eyeballs known as astigmatism. Soft contacts such as these are only able to correct astigmatism of -1 to +1 diopter. Anything more than that and you will really never have clear vision. Luckily there are colored lenses available for your lumpier eyeballs, just look for toric brands.
My vision without contacts is so bad, I look like the mole straight out of Secret Squirrel. Since I theoretically know there's a big E at the top of the eye chart, I'm not in the 20/400 group, but struggle to see the very next line down, scoring a fairly nearsighted 20/200 to 20/225. (For comparison, you'll need 20/40 corrected vision, or a photographic memory to pass yor DMV vision test). This works out nicely to a -2 diopter when taking snapshots or ordering through discount contact lens companies such as VisionDirect.com.
My contacts are avail as high as -8 diopter or plus 6+ diopter, at a surcharge and 30 day waiting period. That's nice to know down the road, when I want to avoid those massive glass horn rims a la Buddy Holly. It's also possible, now that my arms are getting shorter and print is getting smaller, to get bifocal contacts or mono vision, (one lens for distance, one for reading), products.
Some cons would be the very limited color selection. Why even the very names are blah and pedestrian: blue, green, gray and amber. These contacts are a slight improvement over the prototype in that folks like me, (that's roughly 85% of this planet), who have dark eyes can now get some sort of color change.
The color change is not all that dramatic, and the one color I'd love to try, aqua/turquoise isn't available in this grouping. I'm still gonna be hard on my lenses so the disposables recommended above aren't quite an option yet. If they were, the turquoise would get my repeat order, though a friendly local optician mentioned that these very realistic 3-color beauties still work best on light eyes.
Some Alternatives
An option I am seriously considering would be the trade up to the Wesley Jessen Durasoft 3 Compliments line. Again, these are made especially for those with dark eyes, and are improved through the blending of 2 colors, with a slight, naturally darker outer rim. The blue is an attractive medium shade, and the green is one of the only true greens, (not olive), I've seen. I think I'd opt for the misty gray or tanzanite hued blue-violet shade. Although these are mid-water contacts, usage is rated as "flexible," running about 2 months; pricey at $50-75 per lens.
Those who can tolerate extended wear lenses-the type that can be worn continuously, up to a week at a time, would be lucky enough to pick Durasoft 3 Colorblends, with colors such as gray, honey or ah, turquoise. These durable low-water contacts begin at about $60 on up.
In Conclusion
With an average of 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, spent in front of the slightly flickering glare of a 19" computer monitor, I find I am unable to wear cosmetic lenses at work. The comfort rating of these lenses is average, but my eyes are doubly dry, itchy, reddened and sore between lens wear and computer eye strain.
At work you'll be likely to find me with a matronly glass holder around my neck, (since if I take them off, I can't find them), and the fun colored lenses are reserved for days off and night time fun and frolic. Once opened, I still discard my lenses after a maximum of 12 months, because in the long run, your vision is more precious than perceived frugality.
I can recommend the Durasoft 2 Opaque Color Lenses for people with medium colored eyes, who wish a cosmetic change, a durable lens, and a realitively low price for daily wear. I believe it's time to move on up to Durasoft 3's offerings, and would be sold if I could find a realistic turquoise product, (hint, hint), in a conventional low-water base.
I caution gentle, sight-impaired readers never to do what I've done to stretch out my lens wear. Never wear just a single lens, (unless you have the equivalent of a "plano" lens in the other eye, or 20/20 vision). The appearance of one chocolate brown, (think Golden Retriever!) eye and one slightly cloudy baby blue one is something straight out of James Bond, or worse, and could possibly be hazardous to your eyes.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kcfoxy
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Member: Casey Stewart
Location: West Coast Of Mars
Reviews written: 935
Trusted by: 643 members
About Me:
Save the Earth...it's the only planet with Chocolate!
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