I've never done anything other than breathe on them and polish with the bottom of my shirt. What am I missing?
How I clean my glasses
81–90 of 335 posts
Re: How I clean my glasses
#82Any reason you can’t use pure methanol to clean glasses? I don’t wear glasses so I don’t know the specifics, but that’s what we use to clean industrial laser lenses and any tiny speck or smudge or oil would immediately burn the protective coating. We also don’t touch the lens tissue when we clean it, rather we put methanol on the lens tissue and slide it across. Curved lenses are a bit more interesting but same metho…
It's very toxic and absorbed through bare skin. It's overkill, particularly with isopropanol being sufficiently effective and safe and easy to buy.
Re: How I clean my glasses
#83https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Moistened-Lens-Cleaning-Wipes-Eff...
You can thank me later! Never leave home without a bunch of these.
Re: How I clean my glasses
#84The best method I’ve found so far: 1. Get your glasses wet with warm water. 2. Apply dish soap to both lenses. 3. Gently rub the soapy water over the lenses. For some stubborn things (like sunscreen) in the edges I sometimes gently use a Q-tip. 4. Rinse under warm water. Gently rub with your fingers to agitate the soapy water and help rinse it off. 5. (This is the important step) Adjust the faucet’s flow to a low lam…
Ultrasonic cleaners, with a bit of dishes soap in the water, are the most efficient/effective way (I uses to clean them with water and soap as well, in the past).
They are simple devices that lightly shake objects very quickly, in water. They work well with dirt that is soft (e.g. grease), and therefore not only for glasses, but also for teeth aligners and jewelry/small objects.
Some grease is still sticky, but generally speaking, I do a 10 minutes pass every day, and the eyeglasses have never been cleaner.
BE CAREFUL with coated lenses (in particular, cheap sunglasses there), as they will be destroyed (the coating/film will detach from the lens)!
Re: How I clean my glasses
#85Be careful with using ultrasonic cleaners or using otherwise strong solutions because of the risk of taking off polarized/anti-glare lens coating, if you happened to have gotten it (you probably should have :)). Working in a lab that had ultrasonic cleaners, I used to do this and it happened with me after a few washes. It is indeed a bit of a pain to clean it (I'm lazy and just don't... unless it gets really, really…
What did you use with the ultrasonic cleaner? Just de-ionized water or any solution?
Re: How I clean my glasses
#86Any reason you can’t use pure methanol to clean glasses? I don’t wear glasses so I don’t know the specifics, but that’s what we use to clean industrial laser lenses and any tiny speck or smudge or oil would immediately burn the protective coating. We also don’t touch the lens tissue when we clean it, rather we put methanol on the lens tissue and slide it across. Curved lenses are a bit more interesting but same metho…
Do you really mean methanol? It’s toxic even at low concentrations. Can permeate the skin and produces irreversible blindness.
Re: How I clean my glasses
#87I've never done anything other than breathe on them and polish with the bottom of my shirt. What am I missing?
Grease is not entirely caught by cloth; the stickier/large the grease patch, the more it will spread over the lens, making it time consuming to clean.
Re: How I clean my glasses
#88Any reason you can’t use pure methanol to clean glasses? I don’t wear glasses so I don’t know the specifics, but that’s what we use to clean industrial laser lenses and any tiny speck or smudge or oil would immediately burn the protective coating. We also don’t touch the lens tissue when we clean it, rather we put methanol on the lens tissue and slide it across. Curved lenses are a bit more interesting but same metho…
RE: “overkill” - I agree, but this blog post/article prompted me to suggest this as a one step solution to eliminate multiple steps with multiple products as an alternative to what another commenter called “OCD.” A bottle of methanol, and tissue lens. Yes, you can’t find it everywhere, but you can buy it in bulk from a local lab supply store. If you’re cleaning constantly, keep it in a small dark glass bottle dropper that you can take with you.
Re: How I clean my glasses
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I spend £300+ per pair on not having coke bottle thick glasses that are thin and light, and made out of polycarb.
Paying more can get you thinner lenses? This is of interest to me as I do have coke bottle-thick glasses.
Yes, absolutely. All depends on your prescription and sizes though.
Most decent optical labs operate on a sliding scale, going thinner and thinner, but costing more and more. Can get quite expensive (relatively), but if you're going to absolutely baby your glasses, and use something like Zeiss single-use lens wipes, yes I think it's absolutely justifiable for something you're going to use all day, every day for several years.
About 12 years ago, I switched to rimless with carbon fibre arms to try and get the weight down as the option to go as thin as I'd like just wasn't there yet, and I was still stuck with traditional glass, so the weight was a concern for me, and my glasses were forever slipping down my nose (ugh).
Maybe 4 years ago I switched over to hingeless titanium frames (almost wire-thin) with rimless lenses that are incredibly thin and light, and made out of polycarb. Not got my prescription info to hand, but it's a world of difference what's available now versus a decade ago.
They're so thin and light now that I frequently forget that I'm wearing them, and can even fall asleep in them! Oops! They stay stuck on my nose too, I never need to push my glasses up my nose.
I thought pursuing thinner and lighter would be an exercise in vanity, but I can honestly say it's significantly improved my quality of life.
Re: How I clean my glasses
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least in the US that would be much cheaper: I can get high index (1.74) lenses for +$75: https://www.zennioptical.com/glasses-lenses (so the overall glasses are ~$100)
I have a Zenni pair, I think they are 1.74 and around -6 correction in each eye. They are really cheap compared to other places, but they have very high chromatic aberration on the sides and I don't thing they are perfectly centered. I think it's something that's more noticeable when you need relatively high power lenses.
This is what I suspected would be the case. You absolutely do get what you pay for when it comes to optics, but equally, you can over-pay for utter rubbish. If you've got the vocabulary (which you do) to describe and understand what to look for, you can't go wrong.