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What are polarized lenses - and why you should care

HollyEyewear-Polarized-Lens

Image Courtesy of: Mauijim.com

Imagine it - you’re shoop! shoop! shooping! down the slopes in Whistler, when all of a sudden you’re temporarily blinded by the intense glare off the fresh pow-pow you were loving moments before.

Not only is that glare distracting, it can also be super dangerous. Of course, any seasoned outdoor sporty type from ’boarders to boaters would likely try on a pair of sunglasses to beat that glare - but reducing brightness will only go so far.


See, because surfaces tend to be textured or uneven, light tend to scatter or break up when it hits them. But when rays hit smooth surfaces - say freshly groomed hills, sheets of metal, or glass-like water, the light flattens and bounces off them in a uniform way going directly into, you guessed it, our eyes.


What you really need in these scenarios is a coating that helps to do the job for you, dispersing or breaking up the light so you can see more clearly in conditions that seem to erase definition. And that’s exactly why “polarized” lenses were created.


“Polarized” lenses refer to a special filter that blocks intense reflected light, reducing glare and helping you perform better in your sport whether that’s skiing, boarding, biking fishing, or boating. But it’s not just glare reduction - polarized lenses reduce eye strain, enhance true colour and perception clarity, and they provide ability to see through the glare so you can see what lies beneath the surface (of water, not snow. They’re not that magical!).


That said, polarized lenses do have some drawbacks - their special coating could reduce glare so well that icy patches on slopes aren’t as obvious, and reading LCD screens so dashboard displays (on cars or boats), ATMs, and even cell phones can be come next to impossible.


Polarizing is one of a number of great options we can use to customize your lenses at HOLLY and it’s even combinable with a variety of tints and colour transitions to create lenses that are completely personalized to you.


Whether polarized lenses are the right choice can depend on a few factors.  Chatting with your Optician can help determine the unique combination of filters and tints for you.

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