Lens Colors

Before you buy a pair of sunglasses for sailing, or look for clip on sunglasses to go over your prescription eye wear, you should consider the lens colors. The color of the lens can make a dramatic difference during activities, and you may actually damage your eyes if you choose the wrong one.

White And Grey Lenses

While blue and purple lenses may look fashionable, they won't do your eyes much good. If you just want lenses to match an outfit or for sitting on the beach, but they increase blue light and make it very difficult to see contrast. So, don't buy sunglasses with blue or purple lenses for sports or activities where you need to move fast.

Grey is the most popular color for regular sunglasses. Colors won't distort like they can with different colored lenses, and depth perception isn't affected. Green lenses are similar to grey ones - colors are flattened and remain true in any situation.

Pink And Brown Lenses

Pink is a great lens color for foggy or snowy conditions, such as driving on the highway in the middle of winter. The contrast between the snow and the road will look sharp, allowing you to avoid accidents and have a clear path of vision. You can find sunglasses with light rose lenses, all the way to a deep vermilion color. The darker pink the lenses are, the more light they will block out.

The same goes for brown lenses. If you opt for a darker brown lens, you will have better clarity and depth perception for driving or playing sports. If you choose a lighter brown lens, you will see less contrast and less light will be filtered out.

Amber And Yellow Lenses

If you plan on hitting the slopes, look for amber or yellow tinted shades. These lens colors will allow your eyes to see contrasts like trees and bumps in the snow while you're racing down the ski hill. They work by filtering out blue light, which makes focusing on objects at high speeds very difficult. Amber or yellow lenses can also be helpful in hazy or cloudy weather conditions. However, colors can appear a bit distorted, so yellow or amber lenses aren't recommended for many activities such as driving, where proper color recognition is important.

Clear Lenses

For night time eye protection, such as skiing or sailing in the evening, you can depend on clear lenses to help you see color contrasts and make out objects in the dark. In general, you don't need sunglasses at night unless you're using them for protection from snow or water getting into your eyes.

Make sure that you buy sunglasses that block out 99-100% of UV rays - it doesn't matter how dark the lens color is if it doesn't have UV protection. UV rays can still enter even darkly tinted sunglasses, so look for the UV protection label when shopping for new sunglasses.