Buying prescription glasses: What to judge when shopping

Buying glasses can be a big commitment. Even with the right deal and a great sale to keep the price down, you’re still picking out what will essentially become a part of your face until your next purchase. Your glasses will inform every first impression and contribute their shape to every smile and frown. Maybe that’s too much pressure, but another way to make things easier is to look at what makes a pair of glasses the “Best” for experts who make a point of judging.

Many online stores offer a wide selection of prescription glasses. Even with an internet full of articles telling you which glasses are the best, it’s still going to come down to you to make a decision about what frame fits your face.

Maybe one day you’ll be able to just choose the latest model of high-tech digital glasses, but for now, you’ve got a decision to make. Here are a few things you can consider when making that decision.

What’s your perfect price point?

This one is obvious on the surface, and it stays obvious once you get deep with it, too. You want the best value for what you’re paying! What could be simpler than that? Well, sites still rank different glasses in different places. Some lists go all the way to the bottom of the price range, finding frames as low as $6, while others take a more holistic view of value, where the price ranges from $39 all the way to $700.

There’s more to price than just finding the smallest number; you need to get that cost-to-quality ratio working in your favor, and there’s style to take into account, too. Before you start judging the price, you need to decide: what are you willing to spend? Those articles can’t answer that for you. Neither can this one.

Style selection and try-before-you-buy

As long as you’re picking out such a major part of your face’s overall look, you’ll want to find a shop with lots of selection so you can find the right look. Then you’ll want to try them on. There’s a whole discourse about what glasses are best for which face shape, and you’ll find plenty of disagreeing guides online if you want to look for those. They all come down to where on your face the glasses sit, how wide or narrow or tall they are, how round or square, and a lot of other things that are on some guides but not others. You know it’s going to come down to putting them on and seeing for yourself.

If you’re buying online, find a site with a virtual try-on feature. Don’t trust a sales pitch or your imagination when you’ve got a webcam that can dispel all doubt.

How optional are optional features?

With the right vendor and a great deal, some optional features are essentially basic. Would you call shatter-resistant lenses optional? What about a scratch-resistant coating? What you should really be making decisions on are things like transition lenses and blue light blocking, things that can make life easier and vision clearer and save you a few headaches (as figuratively or literally as you like).

Shopping for glasses is so personal and complex that it’s not really a surprise that rankings and priorities differ from guide to guide, site to site. What’s really going to matter is your own. Decide on price, find a great selection, and have some optional features in mind, then find a vendor that lets you put some frames on your face (even if only virtually). With some decision-making done up front, you’ve got a better chance of enjoying the shopping experience and finding what makes your next pair of glasses the best for you.

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