So you’re interested in purchasing a new pair of prescription safety glasses. Perhaps you need a pair for a job that requires eye protection, or a personal DIY project that requires eye safety as well.
Regardless of your reason, we’d love to help.
In fact, we’ve put together this brief informational guide that will give you confidence when choosing your safety glasses. We’ll give you some things to consider including safety standards, frame types, lens technology, and more.
Feel free to browse through our table of contents or read through with us as we see just how you can protect your eyes from all types of hazards while doing the jobs that matter most.
Safety glasses are a crucial aspect of a work environment when irritants or other harm can get in close proximity with your eyes. The reason why safety glasses are so important is because they act as a barrier between your eyes and hazards that can happen in and outside of the workplace.
Some of these common hazards are:
Safety glasses should also be a crucial part of one’s daily routine whenever hazards are involved or instructed by a workplace. So whether on a construction site, in a hospital, or lab, for instance, safety glasses protect your eyes in various work environments, keeping your eyes safe and out of harm’s way.
Before we dive into what makes a great safety glasses frame, we thought it might be helpful to talk about standards.
While we won’t dive into all acceptable safety standards, the most common safety standard for safety glasses is ANSI. This stands for the American National Standards Institute.
The American National Standard Institute creates guidelines for products and equipment in the U.S. market.
For safety glasses, the most common safety standard is “ANSI Z871” or “ANSI Z87+”. Usually written on the side of the frame, they stand for high impact, high-velocity tested frames.
There are other safety standards for Europe (EN 166) for instance, as well as military ballistic safety as well (or MIL-PRF).
Having safety standards will give you a sense of peace as you know you can count on your glasses time and time again as they’ve been upheld to rigorous industry standards, allowing you to focus on the task at hand and giving you the confidence you need to feel safe on and off the job.
Now let’s get into frames.
There are a variety of different frames that offer great eye protection for preventive measures. In this section, we’ll talk about some of the common aspects of frames and perhaps aspects you’d like to consider when shopping for your frames.
For safety glasses, you’ll have the frame which is the main aspect of protection–that is the part that stretches across your eyes.
You also have the arms, which go over your ears and keep your glasses securely in place as you work on various tasks.
You also have your bridge, the part that goes over your nose. Depending on the type frame, this part can be adjustable for maximum comfort.
Top shields are just as they appear, shielding the upper area of the eyes from harmful hazards and will be built into most safety glasses for that added protection.
While optional, side shields are a nice feature because you have extra protection on the side of your eye to combat flying debris and other hazards. But, if you have a wrap around frame, side shields aren’t as necessary, as wrap around frames can extend to the side of the eye to provide additional protection as well.
If you have a prescription, it’s important to know if the frames are prescription available.
You may think your prescription is all you need, however, you have a wide variety of options when it comes to lenses that you may want to consider–we’ll talk about that in this section.
Lenses are an important part of your safety glasses. Not only do they offer impact protection, but they can provide overall eye health by offering UV protection, as well as provide optimum vision.
Here are features to consider for safety glasses lenses:
UV protection coating gives assurance against harmful and undetectable UV light. While more and more safety glasses are giving that layer of assurance against UV light, it’s significant to consider, especially if you’re mainly outdoors.
Regarding lens colors, there are multiple, and each does different things for a respective work environment. In general, however, they can enhance your vision, providing depth perception and allowing you to have visual clarity.
If you’re more likely to engage in strenuous activity or fluctuations in body temperature, you’re more inclined to fogging glasses. An anti-fog coating works by chemically affecting the adhesion of water molecules, preventing them from gathering into large clusters that can impair your vision.
Lastly, with an anti-scratch coating, you can protect your lenses if you leave them out or drop them. Since scratches can affect your vision and the durability of your lenses, an anti-scratch coating is great considering these factors.
As we come to the end of our guide, we know that this may have been a lot of information to take in. So we’ve provided a list below outline things to look for when shopping for prescription glasses online.
With these on your radar, we are sure that you’ll make a great selection and if you have any additional questions, meet us in the last section so we can help you further.
Overview of purchasing prescription safety glasses online
There have been many technological advances in safety glasses, including performance as well. There have also been advances in designs and with the many available options, there’s no need to compromise on safety and style.
Gone are the days where safety glasses are boxy and uncomfortable. In fact, they can be comfortable for all day wear, which is good when working longer hours.
Safety glasses are more than another thing to check off your list when working or doing DIY projects. In fact, they should be one of the first lines of defenses, as they protect your eyes while you deliver uncompromising results.
At RX Safety, we have a variety of prescription safety glasses in a wide range of materials and colors that are suitable for many work environments.
So feel free to contact us. We are available online or by phone and have highly trained customer service representatives who would be happy to assist you, as well as our team of in-house optometrists.
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