Vertical pupils for Halloween - Viper contact lenses :)

I love Halloween and I dress up every year, both to work and for party. This year I'm saving money and I didn't buy a new outfit, just decided to freshen up my old ones with some spooky eyes. I was looking for something that would match both my purple witch outfit (that's my "safe" costume for work) and red&black Jester costume (more party looking one). I couldn't make my mind for a long time, eventually I have chosen white iris with black vertical pupil lenses.

picture from Eyes Bright website

I normally buy my lenses from Pinky Paradise on-line shop, however all their Halloween lenses were sold out by the middle of October, so I made an order from British on-line shop Eyes Bright. It was a pleasant shopping experience and I received my parcel in only two days time. Well done, Eyes Bright!

The lenses are weird in touch, they are very soft and have kind of rubbery feel to them. I guess it's because of amount of pigment of them. When handled they don't stay on finger, they slide and fall, so I struggled a little bit to put them on. Fortunately, once they are in they're doing well, fitting quite comfortably and not stinging (some lenses need time to lay properly on the eye and can sting even up to few minutes after putting on).

I must admit that I was surprised by how well they look on the eye - I was sure that my iris will be visible through the pupil whole, just like it happens with all my other lenses. However in this ones the pupil slot is so small that my iris is well covered. From close distance (like on the pic) they do stand out because my eye's whites are not as perfectly pure white as the pigment on the lens, but from some distance they blend very well and look really disturbing. My friend's and customer's reactions were priceless :D Unfortunately sometimes they turn a little by themselves and need to be fixed every so often.
The small pupil whole is interfering with vision a little bit - it's burred on the edges. The worst part is putting them on, when I have one lens in and on one eye my vision is interfered and the other eye sees fine - that feels really weird. After I put them both in I can get used to them pretty quickly, I didn't have any problems with reading or writing at work. They have 90 days life span, I was wearing them for two days, one day at work for 9-10 hours and next day for party approx. 8 hours. Because of the rubbery feel to them I felt them on my eye all the time.

Price: £14.95 for 90 day lenses. What's interesting prices of daily lenses are similar in Eyes Bright and in Pinky Paradise we would pay similar price for yearly lenses.

Pros:
+ natural iris is not visible
+ a great spooky look

Cons:
- I feel them on my eyes constantly
- they interfere with vision a little bit
- sometimes they spin on their own and need to be adjusted every so often

Overall this are pretty fine lenses, however I wouldn't recommend them to someone who never wore lenses before as they may cause some discomfort. They are not suitable for everyday wear or long time wear (I wouldn't manage 12 hours in them), but they are perfect completion to a wicked costume for Halloween party :)

Perfect circle lens for bright eyes: Vassen Rainbow Eyes in Purplish Red

I wanted to try some purple lenses for a while now, but I couldn't decide. I mostly wear my lenses to work, I don't go out that much, so it's better for me to go for some natural or semi-natural looking lenses (I don't wear my GEO Honey Wing to work, cause they look so unnatural in the daylight). A lot of lenses are rather in-your-face purple, especially on bright eyes. When I came across this ones they immediately catched my eye as they have combination of my two favourite colours: pink and purple. I wouldn't dare to try just pink lenses, but this mixture looked interesting and subtle.

They have the biggest diameter of my lenses so far: 15mm. Even though they seemed quite big for me I didn't have any problems with putting them on. They settle quickly on the eye and comfortable to wear for 10-13 hours.

left: my nautral eye colour, right: Vassen Rainbow Eyes

This lenses are basically only printed on the very edge, so a lot of natural eye colour is visible. They go well with my natural grayish-blue eyes. Because they don't have the black rim effect is very natural, they can be easily worn to work. The enlargement effect is quite significant. Even on the printed side the lenses are quite transparent. My eyes have natural rim a little bit darker on the outside side of iris, and I can see this rim through the lens if I look closely. If you have natural strongly dark rim around the whole iris this lenses may not look great. Also because of very subtle colour I can't really see them going with very dark eyes - it would kill the effect.

Unfortunately pink is the downside of this shade. It looks interesting, but if you are tired and your eyes are getting red or if you have problem with dark circles around the eyes, pink makes it all more visible. So I only war this lenses when I had a good night sleep lol!

Price: £14.82 on Pinky Paradise

Pros:
+ easy to put on despite of bigger diameter
+ good enlargement effect
+ comfortable to wear for long time
+ quite subtle, suitable for daytime wear
+ look great on light eyes
+ one year life span

Cons:
- they make tired eyes or dark circles around the eyes more visible

Summary: this are nice, comfortable lenses, interesting mixture of colours, looking nice on bright eyes. However I know already that pink is not my kind of colour for the eyes, so next time I will be looking for pure purple.
Rainbow Eyes are also available in Pinkish Brown, Grayish Blue, Light Greenish, Brownish Hazel. I am really tempted to try the Light Greenish, which has blue and green strokes or Grayish Blue which has blue, gray and yellow strokes^^

Review: GEO Honey Wing circle lens on light eyes

As I got my eyes tested and my first pair of circle lenses were a success the world of possibilities opened up for me, so suddenly I decided that I really really want chocolate brown eyes. There is hundreds of them available so it took me a good couple of days to finally make up my mind. Since my GEO Bella Green lenses were a success I decided to narrow my choices to that company and finally was able to choose GEO Honey Wing.

What caught my attention to this particular lenses was the fact that their limbal ring is not black but dark brown. I learnt from my green lenses that black ring makes the colour inside of lens less noticeable (unless it's a really vivid one) and I was opting for quite even dark brown eyes.
GEO Honey Wing have diameter of casual contact lenses - 14mm - but are printed right to the edge of the lens, so even with small diameter they are giving me eyes subtle enlargement effect. I find them quite hard to put on and I don't know why, since they have such a small diameter and exactly same base curve and water content as my Bella Green... They also take quite long to settle down on my eyes, sometimes even up to 10mins, but after that they are comfortable and I can hardly feel them at all. With some eye drops I can easily wear them for 10-12 hours. As most of the circle lenses they got one year life span.

Bright light - left: GEO Honey Wing, right: my natural eye colour

I mus say I don't really like the black pattern around the pupil whole. It doesn't reach my pupil so it's basically in the middle of the eye, which looks weird.

Darker light - left: GEO Honey Wing, right: my natural eye colour

My natural eye colour is peeking through the pupil whole, unless my pupils are enlarged, so these lenses look much more natural in dim lighting or from far away. Between limbal ring and pupil whole the colour of the lenses is opaque and looks as a nice dark brown even on my light eyes.

GEO Honey Wing on both eyes, bright natural light

GEO Honey Wing on both eyes, dim lighting

Even though they look a bit weird in the bright light I wear them sometimes during the daytime and didn't get any bad comments so I suppose they are not that bad :P But they are definitely more beneficial for bright eyes as an evening eye enchantment.
I also recently dyed my hair ginger for the very first time and these lenses are going really well with my new hair colour :)

Price: £12.34 on Pinky Paradise.

Pros:
+  nice, dark brown colour
+ dark brown limbal ring that I think looks better than a black one would
+ comfortable for long time wear
+ one year life span

Cons
- I find them quite hard to put on, but I'm not sure why
- Can take quite a long time to settle on the eye
- My natural iris colour is peeking through the pupil whole, so if you have light eyes you won't get full colour coverage
- The black pattern on the inside of the lens looks weird

Summing up: I quite like these lenses and I am happy with my purchase, they look beautiful in the dim lighting, when my natural colour is not peeking through. I can imagine they would look great on hazel or brown eyes :)

Coloured contact lenses and my first pair of circle lens: GEO Bella Green

Hello ^^
finally I got some lenses and I will share with you my experience :)

Inspired by other Asian Beauty blogger I started to dream about huge, green eyes. Initially I thought I'm just going to do it hardcore way and just buy some lenses, without consulting it with specialist, I can put eye drops in my eyes with no problems, so I would be probably fine with lenses as well. I downloaded from the Internet a little handbook of how to insert/remove and care for lenses and... I realised it may be not that simple to just do it. Besides, eyes are very sensitive, so I would be better of consulting it with optician. However I was afraid, that if I go to the opticians and tell them, that I don't have any sight problems I just want to wear coloured contacts for fun, they wouldn't treat me seriously. I've put the whole lens case aside for "some day in the future".

Recently when we were in town my fiance went to opticians, because the time of his 2-year check-up was coming. Since I was there anyway I decided to give it a go and ask about lenses. All my concerns turned out to be unjust - for optician it doesn't matter if you really have some sight problems or just want lenses for fun - they still have to carry out same tests. I was treated in very polite and professional way. Luckily, someone didn't show up for their appointment, so I could squeeze in and have some tests done after only 10 minutes waiting. Firstly, I got my sight tested (as I thought it's perfectly fine), then eyes themselves. During the eye test for contact lenses, optician applies some orange dye into our eyes and then tests them carefully to check for any irregularities or dry ares on surface of the eye. Mostly for this test it is important to see the specialist before wearing your first lenses - your eyes can have some defects that you won't feel and know about, that can make wearing lenses impossible. After the tests, when we knew there is no issues with my eyes, I could choose the colour of lenses and then I was shown how to correctly put on and take off my lenses, how to clean them, how to check if they are not inside out etc. I was doing quite well on the practise part :)
Now the best part: the lenses that I have chosen - monthly disposables - I received for free as a sample. All the test were free as well. The only thing I have paid for was contact lens solution.
The opticians I went to was Specsavers (British optician chain). The tests are free at every opticians in the UK, but I don't know about free lenses. I can definitely recommend this company - my fiance always have glasses from them and he is very happy with them. The customer service was excellent - nice & professional - I was handled by three people all together and all of them confirmed that it's a good idea to get your eyes tested before wearing contact lenses.

The lenses I tested are Expressions Colour Vision in Aqua (14mm diameter). Colour is nice and vivid, around the pupil you can see a bit of my natural eye colour (grey), but colour of the lens blends in nicely. They are comfortable for approx. 11 hours - in general they're not supposed to be worn longer than 12h, but even if I would like to wear them longer, I don;t think I would manage. After 11-12h my vision starts to be blurred, it's hard to focus sight on small objects, hard to read.
During the first couple of days I felt that I have something on my eyes, but it wasn't annoying or painful - i just felt something under my eyelids when I was blinking. For the first couple of days my vision was also blurred slightly on the edges, but after few days I stopped feeling the lenses and my vision became clear.

in bright natural light (facing the window)

in dim natural light (window on the right hand side)

These lenses look quite natural - they don't make eyes look bigger, just give them more vivid colour. If someone pays attention to our eyes (for example I know all my friend's eye's colour) will notice the change straight away, especially that this colour is too vivid to be natural. If someone doesn't pay too much attention to the eyes (I know some people that even though they know me for years, they wouldn't be able to tell my eye colour without looking in my eyes), won't notice the difference. So couple of my friends and colleagues noticed straight away that there was something different about my eyes, but some people didn't notice the difference and even when I told them I have contact lenses on, they thought I'm talking about plain corrective ones.

After two weeks of wearing "normal" coloured lenses, when I was fully comfortable with them I ordered my first pair of circle lenses form Pinky Paradise on-line store. The choice of products shocked me, so I spend good couple of hours before I could make my mind. Finally I have chosen GEO Bella Green - I knew I wanted to start with green lenses and I have chosen GEO as this company is well known form good quality. I also didn't want diameter to be bigger than 14/14.2mm as I am still a beginner.

size comparison: "normal" lens and circle lens

As you can see GEO Bella are just a little bit bigger than normal lenses, but the trick lays in the colour print - while normal lenses have clear "margin", the circle lens are printed almost to the edge. The circle lens have also bigger "whole" for the pupil, so the natural eye colour will be more visible.

left: normal coloured lens, right: GEO Bella Green

 The enlargement is noticeable, but not drastic. GEO Bella look semi-natural - again, if someone pays attention to our eyes, would notice straight away, but there were still some people that couldn't see the difference. Those circle lens look more natural from closer distance than from far away - from far away you can just see the black rim around the iris, so much that "pupil" is less noticeable - so you can just see the black rim and the bright colour inside, what looks a bit alien like :P from closer distance you can see better the green colour and the pupil, so eye looks more natural.

left: my natural eye, right: GEO Bella Green

 Green looks nice on my bright eyes. Around the pupil you can still see the natural eye colour, but it blends nicely with lens colour. GEO Bella are super comfortable - I kept them on my eyes for "as long as I can take" out of curiosity and they were comfortable for 13 hours. Since my eyes were already used to the lenses wear, I couldn't feel them at all on my eyes and my vision wasn't blurred. I am wearing them for two weeks now, but sometimes I still have to try few times to put them on. I have no idea how I would cope with 15mm diameter 0o so in my opinion circle lens are not good for the first lenses.

A huge plus of Korean lenses is their lifetime: they are yearly disposables, while the optician's coloured lenses are only daily or monthly disposables. In reviews of some circle lenses we can read, that they became uncomfortable after for example 3 months, but it's still a better lifetime than optician's ones, considering that they cost roughly the same.

Summing up: I think that circle lens are very interesting product, if we fancy enlarging our eyes or changing their colour. But it is important to consult with optician before starting any experiments with your eyes. Excited with my first pair of circle lens I already ordered some more: pair of brown and pair purple ones. So I plan to spend a bit less on the cosmetics just now and dive into the lenses :D