I’ve been using clip-ons for sunglasses since I’ve never ventured into the realm of contacts, and my myopia is too great to not wear a prescription. Clip-ons work well in that it’s quick to switch from shades to in the shade, but it’s two layers of glass separated by a layer of air, which isn’t ideal. So this year, in preparation for summer, I got a pair of prescription sunglasses. Being too cheap to pay (or use my insurance) on a pair of designer shades, I decided to try the cheap route and order online. I had recommended ordering online to Pauline and her guinea pig glasses came through fine through Goggles4u. I went through their site to look up some potential designs for my sunglasses but was turned off of them.
There were two problems with their site. First, there is just too much choice, I went through 100s of pages looking at glasses that had slight variations in color, shape, or design. Second, and this is inherent in buying personalized items online, is that I can’t tell how the final product would look on my face regardless of how many dimensions of the various parts of the frames they give. So with too much ambiguity here, I looked at the other sites.
I eventually settled on Zenni Optical. They had a small collection of frames at different price points so the choice was easier. I just picked the simplest, cheapest frames available. I added an 80% grey tint (the maximum), an Anti-Reflection coating and the price came out to $26USD including shipping (UV and anti-scratch was also included free of charge). That’s pretty cheap for prescription sunglasses! (Aside: you can get polarized clip-ons for an extra $4. These cost “$40” at Chinese stores).
The only thing I was worried about was the thickness of my lenses. I have a relatively high prescription but went the cheap route and took the lowest index glass. You can upgrade to different tiers, but I also wanted to see what the thickiest my prescription would be (in case I ever want to order more glasses online). I placed the order on February 24th, they “shipped” on March 6th, tracking started (actually shipped) on March 9th, but I didn’t get them until March 30th. So if you’re trying to get a pair for summer, you should start ordering now!
I am relatively happy with my purchase. The prescription is spot on, I didn’t need to adjust the glasses for a better fit (maybe I have an average head), and the thickness of the lens is manageable (although it’s borderline too thick, of course this also depends if you get rimless, squarular or oval frames). It also came with a hard case (with magnetic seal) and a (non-microfibre?) cleaning cloth.
The thing that pissed me off was the shipping. One of the reasons I choose Zenni over Goggles4U is that Zenni was located in the US and made their glasses there. Goggles4U made and ships from India. I had thought it would be faster than the five weeks it took, although I hear that Canadian customs has been delaying a lot of packages. Customs did go through my package and they charged me an extra $12 for the efforts. That’s twice in a week that I got hit with import duties! I’m not sure why I had to pay duties either, maybe because it was shipped from the US and not other parts of the world. The duty was also extra high. Zenni declared the glasses to US customs as (what looks like) $5, maybe they meant $25; but in any case I got charged tax on $50.
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