Sunglasses have come a long way. Ever since the notorious (and mildly terrifying) eccentric Nero began watching gladiator fights through polished gems to enjoy the color and image distortion, sunglasses have been on the fast track for further improvement. Today, we even have polarized sunglasses that can protect the eyes from UV rays helping to prevent cataracts and vision impairment. They’re more popular than ever before, generating about $34 billion in revenue annually, but there is one area we haven’t managed to improve upon.
It’s been estimated that someone loses, breaks, or sits on their sunglasses every 14 seconds, and I became one of those people a couple of months ago. My brand new Ray Ban Wayfarers were sat upon by my dear husband on an airplane, and I can’t say that I was thrilled. Those things are expensive! I wasn’t really up for spending another $300 on an identical pair, so I was ferreting around the website to see about Ray Ban replacement lenses. They had them, but holy cow! They were pretty expensive, too.
I was lamenting the loss of my favorite shades to my best friend, and she told me about another place that sells replacement sunglass lenses, so I checked it out. They’re aftermarket lenses, so they don’t have that little RB in the corner, but I wasn’t too worried about it. They were significantly cheaper, and I could even order polarized replacement Ray Ban lenses, so that was cool. Here’s how it worked:
1. I checked the Ray Ban website for the size of the lenses so I could order them through the other site.
2. I entered the lens size and the color/polarization that I wanted.
3. I ordered the new pair, and they came in about two weeks.
4. I soaked my frames in hot, soapy water for about a minute before trying to pop the old lenses out. The really broken one came out with no trouble, but the other one was stubborn.
5. I broke the slightly broken lens with a small hammer and extracted it from the frames.
6. I got really nervous trying to pop the new lenses in, and it took a really long time.
7. I washed the new lenses with a lint free cloth, and celebrated my good-as-new glasses!
It was a lot simpler than I would have expected, and much cheaper, too. If I wanted to spend a little more, I could have shipped my glasses to the replacement Ray Ban lenses maker and had them do the installation, but I’m glad I didn’t. It wasn’t very difficult to install them myself.
All in all, it turns out that replacement Ray Ban lenses were definitely the way to go, for me at least. I’m sure others would be bothered about missing the little RB thing in the corners, but I’m just happy to have my favorite frames back in full function. Now I just need to stop leaving them on chairs.