Colored Contacts

Colored contact lenses allow you to temporarily change your eye color, even if you don’t need to correct impaired vision. In this way, you can create a more subtle eye appearance, wear a crazy design for special occasions, or just enjoy how you look with a new eye color.

Will Colored Contacts Change the Way I See?

Only if your colored contacts also contain a prescription to correct nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism. Whether your colored lenses are prescriptive or cosmetic, the center of the lens remains colorless to avoid affecting how you see. Only the part that covers your iris, or the colored part of your eye, contains color, which is what changes your visible eye color.

Will Colored Contacts Look Natural?

Yes, most colored contact lenses use dots, lines, and other shapes to mimic the pattern of your iris.

What Kinds of Tints Are Available?

At your optometry clinic, you may choose from three types of tints:

• Visibility Tint
  Your lens may have a light green or blue tint to help you see it better. This makes it easier to insert and remove your lens, and also to find it if you drop it. Visibility tints are so light that they won’t affect your vision or eye color.
• Enhancement tint
  This type of lens is slightly darker than a visibility tint and will just enhance your natural eye color. This type of tint works well for people who want a more intense eye color, such as a darker blue or green.
• Opaque tint
  This lens can give you a completely new eye color. Most people with dark eyes need an opaque tint to change the color of their eyes.

What Colors Are Available?

The most popular colors are blue, green, violet, hazel, amethyst, gray and brown. Theatrical contact lenses, which can create special effects for movies and costumes to make you look like a vampire or alien, are also available. However, theatrical contact lenses are still a medical device—they should never be shared with anyone.

If you’re thinking about color contact lenses, your eye care provider can help you select the right type of colored contacts depending on your eye color, quality of vision and desired appearance.