- Wash with cold water. Warm or hot water might ruin the coating. (Our water comes supercooled right out of the tap in the winter,so in order to not have my hands instantly frozen into a solid block of ice I go for 15—20 degrees or so.)
- Use a drop of mild dish soap without ammonia.
- Dry them with a soft clean cloth (they use microfiber I think, I just use a random soft towel that doesn't give off any lint/dust)
Doesn't have to be more complicated than that. It takes 20 seconds and my glasses are as good as new.
This is why I worry about radiant heat from fires while camping or burning yard debris. Plastic lenses are usually opaque to IR and that means they're heating up even more than you might think.
I wear glasses and my glass lenses are made by Zeiss. My left eye has mild astigmatism and the glasses correct it perfectly. Each one is made from a single piece of glass that is ground to shape.
Yeah, they are. If you only have say -2 its no big deal. I have -4 and with heavy glasses (I used to wear such) I get pain in top of my nose rather quickly.
Is that really your experience where you live? In mine, the cold tap is cold - once allowed to run through whatever's in the pipes in the building, since it's come from underground.
I've lived places where in the winter, the tap water is just a couple of degrees above freezing. I've lived in places where in the summer I've measured the tap water at over 90 degrees.
He must live somewhere that doesn't get to any real temperature extremes.
I'm from a place that never really gets below freezing, so I have to ask. Is this serious? If so, that's fascinating. When you turn the tap on, does the water instantly turn to slush on the way out? Does it come out at full speed or sluggishly?
Not literally supercooled though, pipes aren’t that pristine, they will happily freeze.
I use cheap, uncoated glasses though and replace them every 3-4 years anyways.
- Do not apply soap to the lenses. Soap is too thick. Apply it to your fingers and rub between fingers to dilute with a bit of water before applying to glasses.
- Use your fingertips as abrasive. Soap is there to dissolve any fats but your fingertips (if clean) are best material to remove anything from your glasses without scratching the surface.
- Few faucets give good laminar flow. I just blow over the glasses. If you do this right, your glass are not scratched and you have cleaned them well, all water will slide off easily.
- Don't ever use towels on either frames or glasses. Towels can easily scratch glass not to mention much softer frames.
If you just dry it out, the mineral residue from water will be left on your glasses.
More than that, mineral crystals are incredibly abrasive so next time you try to clean the glasses they will be abrading and destroying your perfect glass surface.
And second, using distilled water to clean your glasses must be strong contender for least practical glasses cleaning technique.
Blow the water off
vs
Find that jug of distilled water (make sure there is one at work and at your parents in law), then rinse with it (you can do it, hold the jug in one hand and the glasses in the other, don't use all the water), then use the hair dryer on cold to dry your glasses.
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If you need distilled water and hair dryer to do it the result will be permanently dirty glasses, not clean ones.
Maybe because I get the non-scratch coating, but this has never been an issue for me. Have been doing it for twenty years without issue. Assuming lenses are replaced every several years, which they should be.
The scratches on the glass do not have to be visible. The surface just gets a tiny bit matte, reducing the contrast and also making cleaning a bit bigger problem.
As to the frames, except for the unavoidable wear and tear in places where it can't be avoided, my current main daily driver Tom Ford acetate glasses look as shiny as on the day I got them, 3 years ago.
My friend has similar frames and they look matte, after less than a year.
Other methods introduce too much unnecessary complication which don't make the lenses cleaner. Any kind of absorbent material has the potential of depositing tiny fibers or other specs on the lens surface. And air drying potentially leaves behind impurities the from water.
https://www.amazon.com/Zeiss-Pre-Moistened-Cleaning-Wipes-Co...
If they are especially dirty, I'll rinse them with clean water and maybe a bit of soap first.
We have super hard water. Despite soaping to degrease the lenses, our water never just sheets off like soft or distilled water does on a really clean surface. It beads up and leaves deposits when droplets evaporate. So step 5 is problematic for me.
After the rinse, I set the glasses down on a paper towel - temple pieces extended as if I were going to put them on. The lens frames rest on the paper towel, their lower parts in contact with the towel.
I use canned air to gently drive droplets down front & back surfaces to the bottom of the lenses. They then generally wick away into the paper towel, or else evaporate at the lens/frame interface. No need for step 6. Takes about 30 sec, leaves no spots on the lenses after.
This is the exact thing I do as well. I have also found that rinsing with hot water helps tiny droplets evaporate quickly without (for some reason? Clean water at home?) leaving drying stains.
My main concern is that the more effective soap may damage coatings. In practise, however, it seems that she has to change lenses often enough that damaged coating does not have time to become a big issue. (This is partially due to how pregnancy and breastfeeding changes the eyes -- we'll see how things go after this.)
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)!
I don't know the technical distinction, but there is a noticeable distinction in prcatice. I guess that "cheap coating" is made by gluing a film; I see this type of coating very often in budget or even not-so-budget sports (sun)glasses.
Cleaning this type of glasses in an unltrasonic cleaner will cause bubbles to form between the film and the lens.
I have a few uncoated lenses, such as semi-disposable safety goggles, and a few uncoated glass lenses of one sort or another, although I expect you didn't mean those.
This final step is also how soldiers get those perfect mirror finishes on their boots and belts!
Since I've started doing this I've actually had compliments from optometrists what good shape my lenses are in.
The best recommendation for it is remembering my chemistry teachers telling us that "water is the universal solvent". Well, filtering and removing all of the stuff previously dissolved in the water turns it into a very aggressive yet gentle solvent. It's great for cleaning surfaces and tools at the shop, windows at home, it makes glassware really shine, and of course, as a final step cleaning eyeglasses.
(I just use a kit & resin from CR Spotless, available online. No affiliation, hope it helps as a starting point)
I don't know how true it is but I read in a few places where hot water and glasses don't mix well. It can mess with prescription lenses and potentially strip away extra coatings you have like auto-tint.
I know hot and warm are different but just to be safe I always go with cool.
It's too bad hot water is bad for lenses because it would be really convenient to be able to clean them while showering.
But yep, this is exactly what I do. Usually hand soap, but the stuff I get is just plain soap, no fragrance or moisturizer, so it rinses super easily. And when it's properly clean, the water leaves the surface dry and streak-free.
Here's what I did: 1. First pass of laminar flow water from the faucet to remove any large debris. 2. Two sprays of lens cleaner on each side of each lens. 3. Rinse lenses with laminar flow water making sure to leave no droplets behind.
Thank you for changing my algorithm forever.
Also, I wash my windows at home with plain water and a squeegee.
Between cleanings when I get a small smudge I go back to using my t-shirt, but I only clean the specific area that is dirty.
In between these sessions, I will use the little wipes. I find that paper they are made of is very similar to chem wipes. I keep the papers in a little box and use them for all sorts of minor tasks.
It is AWESOME.
It is amazing for sunglasses. Clarity is critical for driving, but they also seem to build up oil faster than normal glasses. Dawn makes them meticulously clean.
They'll eventually fog, but it takes a lot longer.
I am guessing this may damage the glasses with the dust but it is fast and effective.
A better solution is to keep a clean microfiber lens cloth that never comes into contact with anything except freshly cleaned lenses to dry them. Unfortunately, for me it's tough to keep one that clean for very long.
A worse solution is just to use the relatively-clean inside of a t-shirt. All three methods have their place IMHO.
I know someone that cleaned their hard contacts like this too.
It's better to do a final rinse with RO or distilled water.
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 laminar flow and run the glasses through water, hitting the top of the glasses first and letting the water flow down and off the bottom of the lenses. It might take a couple passes but doing this will eliminate any water droplets on the lenses.
6. Use a clean towel to gently dry the frames. The lenses don’t need drying since the laminar flow eliminated all the water droplets on them.