Do you want to understand the basics of proper glasses cleaning?
Here are all the answers: EYESHAKER FAQ
1. Why your glasses age so quickly
You spent 400 euros on your new glasses. Beautiful design, perfect glazing, anti-reflective coating included. One year later, those same glasses look dull and scratched when you see them in the mirror.
What happened?
Spoiler: It wasn't the glasses. It was how you cleaned them.
2. The problem lies in the coating
Modern spectacle lenses are covered with several ultra-thin layers. The best known is the anti-reflective coating – it ensures that no light is reflected from your lenses and that the person opposite you sees your eyes, not their own reflection.
This coating is only 200 to 300 nanometers thin. For comparison: a human hair is about 70,000 nanometers thick. So you are cleaning a surface that is more delicate than you probably think.
3. What really makes your glasses old
- Shirt, T-shirt and handkerchief
The first thing most people instinctively do when their glasses are dirty: wipe them on the nearest fabric. Convenient, fast, disastrous. Even soft cotton fabric has a rough, fibrous surface under a microscope. In combination with dirt particles on the lens – and on the cloth – this acts like sandpaper on your coating. Invisible. But accumulated over months, the damage is real.
- Alcohol, household cleaners and co.
Many people reach for disinfectant, glass cleaner or dish soap. Sounds logical. But it's usually wrong. Many of these products contain solvents that dissolve the coating. Once sounds harmless. After the fiftieth time, the coating begins to peel off – that iridescent, patchy look you may already know.
- Heat
Summer heat in the car, hot water when washing up, the sauna: heat slightly expands the spectacle lens. The coating expands with it – but not always at the same rate. Over time, tiny hairline cracks appear in the layer structure. You see the result as fine, spiderweb-like patterns on your lenses.
- Cosmetics and fingerprints
Sunscreen, foundation, hair gel – all of this ends up on your lenses sooner or later. These substances are chemically aggressive enough to attack coatings. Fingerprints sound harmless, but they are mixtures of grease and salt that slowly react on the surface if not removed regularly.
4. What this means for your vision quality
A damaged coating is not just a cosmetic problem. Dull or scratched lenses scatter light instead of focusing it. Contrasts appear flatter, glare increases, your eyes have to work harder. Those who are sensitive notice this as fatigue or slight headaches at the end of a long day.
And then there's hygiene: spectacle lenses are lifted to the face or touched an average of seven to eight times a day. Frames and nose pads are a direct point of contact with your skin. If not cleaned, bacteria, skin oils, and residues of care products accumulate there – an underestimated issue for anyone struggling with blemished skin.
5. How to really protect your glasses
The simple answer: clean them correctly, regularly.
Specifically, this means: no shirt, no handkerchief, no paper towel. Instead, use a special cleaning solution that is tailored to spectacle lenses and their coatings – and a high-quality microfiber cloth that is free of dirt particles.
That's exactly what we developed the EYESHAKER for. As passionate opticians with over 25 years of experience, we wanted to create a cleaning system that really works – for lenses, frames, nose pads, and all the places a cloth can't reach. Completely without electricity, completely without compromise.
Your glasses have done a lot for you. Time to give something back.
Shake it.
