Buying Guide
Buying online has come of age and spectacles and glasses can be bought just as easily online as from a High St opticians but at a huge discount and invariably from a greater choice of spectacle frames.
The process you will go through to buy glasses online from Save on Specs.
First get hold of your spectacle prescription
Second select your frame from one of our collections
Third add your delivery details and perscription details to the site
Fourth enter your PD (Pupilary Distance) if you know it or use the default setting
Fifth chose your lenses and coatings
Sixth checkout and wait for your glasses to come to you
Find out more about:
1. Understanding your prescription for glasses
2. Chosing the right Glasses
3. Inputting your spectacle perscription
4. Lenses and coatings
5. Single Vision, Bifocals and Varifocals Lenses
6. Checkout
7. Delivery costs and date
Understanding your Prescription for Glasses
You will need an up to date prescription. If you are between 16 and 70 a prescription less than two years old is valid. If you are over 70 your prescription is valid for twelve months, if you are having any problems with your vision a further sight test is advisable regardless.
After your sight test your optician is legally obliged to hand you your copy of the prescription, if they don't, ask for it, they cannot refuse to give it to you.
Your prescription will be in two sets of boxes, one set for the right eye and one set for the left eye.
For each eye you will see boxes for distance and near, if you are under 40 years old you only need a prescription for distance. If you are over 40 you may need glasses to see distance objects clearly and a seperate 'reading prescription' to see near things clearly.
On your prescription, therefore, the near part maybe either blank, have the boxes filled in or have a 'reading add' written across it like one of these : +1.50, +1.75, +2.00, +2.25, +2.50, + 2.75, +3.00.You will see five boxes in each set with the following headings:
Sph or sphere, this number is + if you are longsighted and - if you are shortsighted. The number increases in 0.25 steps such as +0.25, +0.50, 0.75, +1.00, +1.25, +1.50,+1.75 etc up to around +10.00. If you are shortsighted the number have the - infront instead of the longsighted + and may go up to -20.00.
Occasionally you will might see DS after the numbers, this stands for Dioptres Sphere and is the unit of measurement.
Cyl or cylinder this is the amount of astigmatism that your glasses corrects for, astigmatism is when your corneas are oval shaped instead round ( like the surface of a rugby ball instead of a football ).
Axis this is the orientation of the cyl in your glasses, it is measured in degrees from 5 to 180.
Prism is a specialised correction for when our eyes have a tendency to drift out of line. If you have a prism in your glasses please phone our help line to ask advice.to the bottom of either
Base is the orientation of the prism correction.
Chosing the Right Glasses
Size
The easiest way is to first measure your own glasses.
Glasses Width Measured from the right edge of right lens to the left edge of the left lens in mm's.
Glasses Depth Measured from the top to the bottom of either lens at its widest part.
Nose Width Measured from the middle of one nose pad to the other one.
All our glasses have the Glasses Width, Glasses Depth and Nose Width shown as well as the technical measurements for spectacles which are explained below.
Look at the inside of your glasses.
Unless they have worn off you will see several numbers on them which will be the frame model, colour and size. In particular look for two numbers together either on the inside of the bar between the two lenses or on a side that look like this 48 18 or 50 21 or 52 20 ie the first number is between 46 and 58 and the second number is between 12 and 26.
The first number is the lens size in mm's and the second is for the width of your nose again in mm's.You will also see a number such as 125 or 135 which is the length of the sides in mm's.
As a Guide
Small faces will need frames with small lenses 46 to 48
Average sized faces will need lenses of 50 to 52
Large faces will need 54 to 56
Men will need slightly larger, on average, than women.Narrow noses will be 15 to 17
Average noses wil need 18 to 20
Wide noses will need 21 to 24Glasses Shape
When we look at people's faces we subconsciously evaluate its proportions in accordance with the Golden Ratio of 1 to 1.62. This ratio is found throughout Art, Architecture and Nature and is closely associated with our perception of beauty.
The right choice of glasses can help our faces appear to fit the Golden Ratio more closely by following these simple rules:
Oval Faces can wear most shapes but oval glasses will reinforce your great proportions.
Round Faces suit rectangular, angular and perhaps darker glasses best to give shape and depth.
Narrow Faces suit deeper glasses with a low nose bridge and a darker colour.
Short/Wide Faces suit rimless or semi-rimless ( no frame at the bottom ) glasses with a high nose bar.
Heart Shaped Faces suit thin rimmed squarish glasses, slightly low in fitting and light in colour.
Flat Faces suit thicker rimmed glasses to give depth.
Large Noses are balanced by larger thicker rimmed glasses.
Long Noses are balanced by low or double nose bars, thicker rims and high thicker sides.
Short Noses are balanced by high nose bars and light coloured glasses.
Glasses Colour
Apart from the above guidelines try to match the colour of you glasses to your complection and hair colour.
Fair Hair/Skin Silver or pale gold metal frames and pastel plastic glasses.
Brown Hair Medium Skin Gold, gunmetal or medium strength plastic glasses.
Black Hair/Dark Skin Gold metal or bold coloured plastic glasses.
Inputting Your Spectacle Prescription
Use the top set of boxes for distance or daily wear glasses and the bottom set of boxes for reading, computer or near vision glasses.
If your prescription just has Add +1.50 or Add + 2.00 or Add +2.50 etc across the reading/near section of your prescription, instead of the Sph/Cyl/Axis format, put that number into the box provided instead of filling out the near/reading boxes.
Simply use the matching boxes for Sph, Cyl and Axis to input your prescription for glasses using the drop down list to select the right numbers.
Please take extra care to select the + or - as shown on your prescription as this is the most common mistake made by anyone ordering glasses.
Make sure you put your right eye's prescription in the boxes labled right and the left eye's prescription in the boxes labled left.
Tick the box to stipulate wether the glasses are for:
Distance/general use
Near/reading use
Bifocal/VarifocalEnter your PD
PD stands for pupillary distance and is the distance in mm's between the centres of your eyes.
We centre the lenses of your glasses directly in front of your eyes to give optimum visual performance using this measurement.If you know your PD put this into the box provided or use our default setting which calculates your PD based on the size of glasses you have chosen and wether you are a man or woman.
As a guide
For a Man
58 very close set eyes
60 close set eyes
62 slightly close set
64 average distance between eyes
66 slightly wide set eyes
68 wide set eyes
70 very wide set eyesFor a Woman
56 very close set eyes
58 close set eyes
60 slightly close set
62 average distance between eyes
64 slightly wide set eyes
66 wide set eyes
68 very wide set eyesGenerally smaller faces will have closer set eyes and bigger faces wider set eyes. Men will have wider set eyes than women hence our default settings.
Lenses and Coatings
Lens Thickness
All our lenses conform to CE standards and are the same as used in High St Opticians.
Our standard lenses are 1.50 CR39 plastic.
Higher prescriptions will have thicker lenses. Lenses can be made thinner by making them from special materials which have a higher Refractive Index, the higher the index the thinner the lens.We offer:
1.5 standard lenses
1.6 thin lenses which are 25% thinner than standard
1.67 extra thin lenses which are 40% thinner than standard lenses
1.74 super thin lenses which are 50% thinner than standard lensesIf your lenses are over 3.00 we recommend you consider 1.6 lenses.
If your lenses are over 4.50 we recommend 1.67 lenses.
If your lenses are over 6.00 we recommend 1.74 lenses.We do not use glass lenses for safety reasons.
Lens Coatings
Anti Scratch ( AS ) This significantly reduces how easily your lenses will get scratched.
Anti Reflection + Anti Scratch ( ARS ) This dramatically reduces reflections off your glasses so that people can see your eyes better, it also makes your lenses look thinner because light doesn't get trapped inside the lens causing internal reflections and the dreaded 'bottle bottom' look. They are better for driving at night because of reduced glare from reflections and better light transmission through the lens.This coating is also anti scratch.
Anti Grease + Anti Reflection + Anti Scratch ( AGRS ) Made from a Teflon like material this coating helps to keep your glasses clean. It incorporates the Anti Reflection and Anti Scratch properties as well.
Reactolight Lenses
Reactolight lenses will go darker in sunlight and become clear out of sunlight. They are available in grey and brown colours. Unless you have a preference, chose the colour to match your glasses eg grey lenses to silver or gunmetal glasses and brown lenses to gold metal or brown plastic glasses.
Single Vision, Bifocals and Varifocals Lenses
Single vision lenses are simple lenses to which we are all accustomed, they maybe for distance, near or both if you are under 40. After 40 years of age people begin to have difficulty changing focus from distant objects to near ones and back. This is because the lens of the eye becomes less pliable with age.
To overcome this it is possible to have a lens made with two seperate focuses, these are
Bifocals and will be recognised as those having a small segment at the bottom of the lens. they are either round or shaped like a letter D on its side, flat side up.
Our bifocals are available in28 mm D seg ( our recommendation )
28mm wide round
1.6 thinner 28 D segVarifocals are blended bifocals and give a variable focus effect. They require accurate measurements. This can only be achieved online by:
We first send the frame itself to you.
You have a photograph taken of youself wearing the frame with a digital camera.For accuracy you must be:
Stood up
Looking in the distance and straight ahead
Wearing the glasses firmly on your nose, ie not slipping down or pushed up too high.Bear in mind that your prescription glasses will be slightly heavier and will come to rest firmly on your nose. Try to put the glasses where you expect they will come to rest when you wear them normally.
Send the glasses back to us and e-mail us the photograph as an attachement with your name and address on the e-mail as a reference.
Checkout
All transactions are in British Pounds Sterling.
To checkout we use PayPal which is part of Ebay or HSBC Bank.
We have to use these financial services and both systems use highly sophisticated security and anti-fraud proceedures to process your payments.
Delivery Costs and Date
Delivery is by Royal Mail.
Charged at the cost price of £2.95 special delivery in the UK and £4.95 to mainland Europe.Standard single vision glasses are dispatched within seven working days
Thinner lenses, coated lenses and bifocals take ten working daysComplex and special orders which need to be ordered in may take a further seven days.