Lens Selection Advice | Choosing Lenses for Your Glasses Prescription

Lens selection advice to help you  select the optimal lens type for your glasses prescription.

Note: We only supply single vision lenses when purchasing glasses online at the Little Spectacle Shop. We can supply all types of varifocal and bifocals but these are only available to our instore customers as to ensure best vision, we need to accurately measure lens position and this cannot be done remotely.

Advice on Choosing Single-vision lenses
Single vision lenses have one power across the whole lens and are prescribed by your optician for long or short sight and are used for distance (driving,tv), reading or computer/PC use.This lens type is supplied as standard with every pair of glasses purchased at The Little Spectacle Shop at no additional charge.

The thickness of lens you require very much depends on your glasses prescription, also style of frame and the spectacle frame material(e.g:metal,plastic,wood).

As a simple guide if , if you have a combined glasses prescription power above +/- 3.00 you should opt for thin lenses and if your combined glasses prescription is above +/- 6 then we would advise to go for ultra-thin lenses helping to reduce lens weight,thickness and cosmetic appearence of your glasses.

At the Little Spectacle Shop you can choose Standard (1.5 index lenses), Thin (1.6 index) and Ultra-Thin (1.67 index) lenses.

The index of spectacle lenses refers to the way the lens material refracts(or bends) light. Higher index lenses allow higher glasses prescription strengths to be incorporated into a thinner piece of your spectacle lens, thereby reducing thickness and weight

Choosing the lens thickness you need depends very much on your glasses prescription and the type of frame you choose. With plastic and wood frames, we would recommend going for thin lenses (1.6 index) if your glasses prescription is over +/- 3.00. If you choose metal frames which are thinner than most plastic frames, we would advise choosing thin lenses when your prescription is +/- 2.50 or above. Ultra-thin lenses (1.67) are recommended if you have a glasses prescription is over +/- 6.00.

Compared to standard lenses, thin lenses are approx 18-20% thinner. Ultra-thin lenses are typically approx 30-35% thinner.

If your glasses prescription is 3.00 or above, choosing thinner lenses is the best option. Benefits include:

1. Lens edges are less noticeable
2. Overall weight of your spectacles is reduced
3. More aesthetically pleasing, reducing the bulging eyes appearence, caused by high prescriptions

 

If you need any help with choosing lenses for your prescription we would be happy to help, get in touch at our contact us page here.

Check this link for prices on our glasses reglazing service. (putting new lenses in your own frames)