How To Store Color Contacts
If you want to experiment with Dimple’s fun collection of color contacts, you will need to know how to store color contacts safely and hygienically. Here’s our top tips on keeping your color contact lenses in the very best possible condition, ensuring you can wear them again and again without worry. It doesn’t matter if they’re the brightest blue contacts or the deepest brown contacts, you will care for them the same way.
Caring for Color Contacts
First things first, what do you need to know about caring for color contacts? Why does it matter? Unlike regular prescription contacts, there’s very few daily color contact lens brands. This means, unless you really only want to wear them once, you will be using a monthly pack. While some wearers make this mean ‘28 wears’, it’s really better to see it as ‘only leave open for 28 days’. This ensures your lenses don’t dry out or disintegrate in storage. Either way, we’d certainly throw away any lens after 3 months open, no matter how many times it's been worn or how well it was stored.
Fitting Your Color Contacts
The first thing to realize is that contact lenses can, when they’re a poor fit, damage the eye. They slowly scratch the cornea, which leads to irritation and thickening, and can hurt your eye long-term. That's why we advise even non-prescription wearers to have them professionally fitted to your eye for a positive experience. This is also why you need to adhere to recommended wear times, which are typically 12 hours for non-toric lenses and 8 hours for toric lenses. This gives the eye time to breathe and ‘relax’ between wears.
Cleaning Color Contacts
It is absolutely imperative that you keep your lenses clean. Because the eye surface is protein, you will get little blobs of protein and trace minerals from your tears on your lens as you wear it. If you don’t remove these, you will encourage bacteria, and can introduce infections. So whether you choose a separate cleaning system, or an all-in-one storage cleaner, make sure you keep your lenses scrupulously clean. Always wash your hands before and after handling them.
The Best Way To Store Color Contacts
Color contacts are stored in a tear-analogous solution that keeps them moist and hydrated. If they emerge from this in storage, they will dry out. You cannot rehydrate a dried contact lens- it will need to be thrown away. So always keep your case level and flat, and make sure the storage solution is topped up.
If you wear prescription color contacts, you will have a left and right eye prescription. It’s good practice to choose a designated left and right lens if you don’t have a prescription, so the same lens goes in the same eye every time.
Choosing a Cleaning System
You can either have a separate cleaning and storage solution, or use an all-in-one system. We advise going with what the manufacturer or your optometrist recommends. If you use separate systems, you add a few drops to the lens and rub gently before rinsing (if needed) and placing in the case
Storing Color Contacts
Once the lenses are cleaned and disinfected, you will float them in a contact lens storage solution within their designated cup of the storage case. Make sure the case is filled with solution, and all parts of the lens are underneath the solution.
When you next wear your lens, clean the case with fresh solution (never tap water) and let it dry.
How NOT to Store Color Contacts
There’s a few things you can never, ever do to store color contacts. Notably:
- Store Them in Water: Even the best tap water is full of bacteria. Never use water on your contact lenses
- Store Them in Eye Drops: Even the comfort eye drops you use with your lenses cannot be used as a storage medium. You can use them in an emergency to keep your lens hydrated, but you absolutely must clean and transfer them to proper storage medium within the hour or they will not be wearable again. No other eye drop can be used on contact lenses, and even rewetting drops cannot clean and disinfect them. There is no safe substitute for contact solution- rather throw away the lens.
- Use Saline Solution: Saline solutions are there to rinse lenses before putting them in your eye, but like comfort drops, they are not safe for storage, and they do not clean or disinfect.
And there you go! Storing color contact lenses, whether they’re hazel contacts or honey contacts, simply means being responsible and using a contact lens cleaning system exactly as per instructions. Have fun with your new lenses!
Dimple Color Contacts
You’ve tried the rest, now try the best! Dimple are proud to offer not one, but two, collections of the best color contacts. Made to only the highest possible standards, your dimple lenses are comfortable, hygienic, and safe, so why not try them today?
