Popping Peepers - How Your Contacts Can Accentuate Your Eyes

Many people who are interested in a fresh look are looking toward using color contact lenses in order to change their appearance or to accentuate their eyes. Nearly all healthy people are able to wear contact lenses without risk of complications, making color contact lenses an option for nearly anybody. Of course, color contact lenses are not meant to help improve vision. Rather, they are worn to make the eyes more attractive. There are three types of colored lenses to choose from: enhancers, opaque lenses, and light-fitting tints.

Colored Contact Lens Enhancers

As might be expected by the name, enhancers are designed to enhance the person's natural eye color. Most people choosing to wear enhancers have light-colored eyes and wish to accentuate the color. The purpose of enhancers is to brighten eye color or to enrich the natural hue of the eye color. Enhancers are available in a wide variety of colors. In addition, some are capable of making the eyes appear larger.

Unfortunately, enhancers do not help people with dark eyes. A person with dark blue, dark brown or dark green eyes will not see a difference in their eye color when using enhancers.

Colored Contact Opaque Lenses

Opaque lenses are solid colored contact lenses used to completely change the color of the eye. These lenses are best for people with dark colored eyes who cannot gain a color change from enhancers. Using opaque lenses, person with brown eyes who wants to have blue eyes or a person with green eyes who wishes to have brown eyes would use opaque lenses. The spectrum of colors being offered in opaque lenses continues to grow and currently includes many shades of brown, blue, gray, green, and violet.

Colored Contact Light-Filtering Tints

Light-filtering tints are the most recent creation in colored contact lenses. These colored contacts are a little different from the other two types because their main purpose is to enhance sports performance rather than to accentuate eyes. The color tint used on light-filtering contacts is designed to enhance certain colors seen by the eye. For example, a tennis player may wear light-filtering tints in order to enhance the color yellow, making it easier to see the tennis ball.

Choosing the Right Colored Contacts

It is important to note that both enhancers and opaque color lenses will not look exactly the same on every person. This is because the natural eye color of each person wearing the colored contact lenses has an effect on the overall final color. Therefore, it may be necessary to do some experimentation with different hues in order to find the one that is most complimentary. In addition, many people choose to select several different colors of contact lenses in order to change the colors with their fashions or moods.

Many colored contact lens manufacturers provide convenient charts to help determine the contact lens colors that are most complimentary for certain hair and skin types. These charts are only meant to be a guide and do not have to be strictly adhered to, but they do provide color combinations that will provide the most natural look while still making a dramatic and exciting change to appearance.

Keeping Eyes Healthy While Wearing Colored Contacts

When using color contacts, it is still important to have a regular check up with the eye doctor, even if the contacts are not corrective. Those wearing color contact lenses should visit the eye doctor once per year. In addition, certain precautions should be adhered to when it comes to the use of colored contacts. For example, people should never share colored contact lenses with other people. Sharing colored contact lenses can cause bacteria and other diseases to be transferred from one person to the other.

Colored contact should also never be worn for longer periods of time than what is recommended by the manufacturer or eye doctor. Wearing contacts that are worn out can lead to scarring of the eye tissue or infections in the eye. Just as with prescription contact lenses, colored contacts should also be cleaned prior to being inserted into the eye and it is best to avoid wearing contacts when sick. Finally, contacts should never be worn while sleeping unless they are specifically made for this purpose.