The secret seems to be mass-production. You no longer need to go to a specialty house that custom-makes effects lenses just for you. Now, they come off an assembly line; probably the same one that makes tinted lenses that commonly turn blue eyes brown. And they are correspondingly cheaper.

These demonic FX contacts go well with a pain of horns.

OK, so this is not the best Grinch getup you have ever seen. But it's pretty good for short notice, and was considerably enhanced by the Wild Eyes cosmetic contacts that I just happened to have around...

Take a closer look. The effect is really quite good. Not the makeup; the eyes.

• Some Questions, Answers, and Comments
• cosmetic contact makers

• Related Pages

• Can you see out of those?

  I only have experience with one pattern made by one company: Wild Eyes. In my experience, and those of people who have posted to the Halloween e-mail list, there is some slight loss of vision around the edges, but you can still "see out of them". Your milage may vary, depending on the size of your pupil. You will find out how well they work for you when you try them on in your doctor's office.

• Do they hurt?

  Kids always ask me "do they hurt?" and it's quite a reasonable question. The answer is, to some degree it does. But that's not because they are creepy-looking, it's because they are contact lenses.

  Wearing any kind of contact lens involves sticking something into your eye that nature did not intend to be there, and leaving it there for a while. It's not really painful, but it is irritating. A lot of research has gone into making contact lenses safe and comfortable, but there is no getting around the fact that you are putting a foreign body in your eye.

  The good news is that you get accustomed to the irritation after a while, and you stop feeling it. Some people also have a sensation of dry eyes, and use lubricating drops to help. You may also find that after an extended period of wear, you eyes feel tired.

• Cool! My friend has some I can borrow...

  Danger! Contact lenses are medical devices. They need to be properly cared for, and kept personal to keep from spreading germs.

  Your eyes are very delicate and precious; you don't want to risk infecting them.

  To put this in perspective, you might blow your nose twice on the same piese of tissue, but you wouldn't borrow a used tissue from somebody else ... I hope.

• How long do they last?

  Check the manufacturer's directions. I believe that Wild Eyes can last for about a year of daily use.

• Can I make them last longer by only wearing them for Halloween?

  If you use the cosmetic soft lenses less frequently, they will wear out slower. That's the good news.

  But you can't just put them in a case, wait a year, and pop them back in your eyes. The solution used to clean and disinfect contact lenses is usually rated for only one month. Your lenses, while sitting around in the old solution, are no longer protected from microorganisms. They can become contaminated; wearing them could result in an infection that might cost you your sight.

  If you intend to keep your lenses "in storage", you must reclean and disinfect them once a month - even if you are not wearing them. And, if you are going to go to that trouble, you might as well just wear them once a month; it will help keep you in practice in inserting and removing them.

  And when it is time to wear them again, don't forget that your eyes need to build up "wear time" gradually. So you can't pop in lenses that you haven't worn in a year and wear them for 8 hours.

• Can I wear them all year long?

  Better check with your eye doctor about this. I have heard that FX contacts are thicker than standard non-disposable lenses, and let less oxygen in to the cornea. (See "build up wear time".)

• I already wear soft contacts; will that make it easier?

  Yes. The cosmetic contacts sold by Wild Eyes and others are essentially just non-disposable soft contacts printed with an interesting pattern.

  You should be able to use the same solutions and protocol with these lenses - but ask your eye doctor, to be sure.

  Note that soft lenses differ in thickness and the amount of oxygen that they transmit to your cornea. You might have to build up wear time with them.

• I already wear rigid contacts; will that make it easier?

  Yes and no.

  Rigid contacts, like the Boston Lens, require different cleaning and disinfecting solutions and different care protocols. You will have to learn how to handle the new lenses and buy new equipment.

  You might have some trouble putting in the new lenses, because they tend to be larger in diameter, and are very floppy. You can't put in a Boston Lens inside-out, but you can do that with soft lenses. If you do, they don't work as well and are uncomfortable.

  The good news is that the soft lenses are more comfortable to wear, and your use of rigid lenses will have already conditioned your cornea to get along with less oxygen, so you probably won't have to build up wear time.

• What brands are available?

  We have an entire page dedicated to the various styles of FX contacts available from cosmetic contact makers.

• Where can I get them?

  Ask your eye care professional. Anybody who dispenses ordinary contact lenses should be able to put you in a pair of cosmetic FX contact lenses.

  You will need an eye exam, fitting, and other care - so a visit to a brick-and-mortar eyecare professional is a must. I am very pleased with Buena Park Eyecare.

• Can't I just order them through the Web?

  Yes, but it would probably be stupid to do so.

  If you are not already a wearer of soft contact lenses, these cosmetic lenses are not just a costume, they are a cultural change for you. You have to learn new procedures for insertion and removal; learn new sanitary procedures; accustom your body to the foreign intrusion; accustom you mind to pain and irritation; and lots more.

  Can you, right now, open your eye wide and stick your finger in to touch your eyeball without blinking? Do you know which solutions to use? Do you know whether you will need an enzyme soak? Who will you go to when something abnormal happens? How will you know what is abnormal anyway?

  There are fairly frequent threads on the Halloween e-mail lists having to do with contact lenses (and their problems). In late October of 2001, a prominent member of Halloween-L went through a lot of pain trying to figure out how to put in his contacts. No real eye care professional would even let you out the door until he was satisfied that you could put the contacts in properly and remove them unaided.

  If you already wear soft contacts, you chances of a successful mail-order solution are better. But you are still taking a risk that would be mitigated through the use of a qualified local eye care professional.

  And, before you ask, I am not in the optical industry. I have merely worn corrective lenses nearly all my life.

• I want some bichin' scleral lenses!

  Normal contact lenses only cover the colored part of your eye. 'Scleral' lenses cover the white part, too. This allows you to completely change the look of your eyes.

  These are pictures of lenses from CLS Distributing.

  The picture on the right is a normal sized effects lens.

  The picture on the left is a much larger "scleral" lens that covers most of the white part of the eye.
  

  I don't have any direct experience with scleral contacts, but from what I have heard, they are bad news: they can only be worn for extremely short periods of time, they hurt like hell.

  According to one story, Jim Carey had to wear yellow scleral contacts for his "Grinch" movie. It was so painful that the production company got a Special Forces specialist in resisting torture to teach him how to endure the pain. It didn't work completely: many scenes were filmed without the scleral contacts and his eyes were digitally retouched.

  Not everybody has problems like this. Some people do just fine with sclerals. Perhaps you will do well with them. Maybe not.

  Still want 'em?

• Whats all this about "building up wear time"?

  Contact lenses cover the cornea, a clear bit of living tissue that you actually look through. Like other tissue, the cornea needs oxygen but it can't be supplied through blood vessels like the rest of the body - or you wouldn't be able to see through it!

  The corneal tissue gets oxygen straight from the air, from direct contact. When you put in contact lenses, you are making your cornea "hold its breath" until you take them out.

  Early contact lenses completely cut off the air to the cornea and therefor could only be worn for short periods of time. Modern "hard" contacts are "gas permeable", letting some oxygen into the cornea. Soft lenses also let some oxygen through. Lenses that let in more air can be worn for longer periods of time, before oxygen starvation causes problems.

  [In addition to increasing discomfort as the cornea gasps for air, extended oxygen deprivation can cause the body to attempt to fix the problem by growing capillaries in the cornea. This is a bad thing - the cornea must be transparent so you can see through it.]

  So, let's say that your doctor finds a brand of contacts that go well for you, and the manufacturer has the oxygen permeability such that you could wear the lenses for 10 hours straight. You can't just put them in and do that the first time.

  Building up wear time is, for your cornea, like learning to hold your breath. How long can you hold your breath? 20 seconds? With a little practice, you could hold it for a minute. With a fair amount of practice, 2 minutes. And if your livelihood depended on it, you could learn to hold your breath for nearly 5 minutes like asian pearl divers.

  So, you need to teach your cornea to hold their breath by starting out with short sessions using contacts, and gradually lengthening them.

  Your eyecare professional will give you a schedule to follow.

• For the Cheap and Stubborn

  I firmly believe that contact lens use should involve consultation with an eye doctor. But there are those cheap and stubborn types who will insist on saving a buck and going it alone.

  We have a page for the Cheap and Stubborn.

• cosmetic contacts [this page]
• cosmetic contact makers
• for the Cheap and Stubborn
• troubleshooting

Thank you for visiting. Your comments are welcome.
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