For a while last year, I saw several friends who had used food coloring to dye their soft contact lenses odd colors. (Genenerally bright blue or red.) They’d put a couple of drops of food coloring in with the saline solution at night, and have colored lenses the next day. During the day, most of the color would usually bleed out. Now, of course, when I saw this, I had to wonder: Is this harmful? I mean, you’re sticking stuff in your eyes. It’s non-toxic food coloring, but is that safe? They seemed to suffer no ill effects. Dumb kids.
I think I remember reading a thread about this one time. But with my Internet connection it’s faster to just respond to you than to search for the thread.
It’s not a very good idea. It’s a heckuva lot cheaper than buying the prescription color lenses, but…
Food coloring bottles aren’t sterile, so any bacteria etc. on the bottle tip will wind up in your eye.
Unlike prescription color lenses, viewing the world through food coloring-dyed lenses results in a world tinted the same color as your lenses.
There are probably some other good reasons why you shouldn’t engage in this practice–I’ll search for that thread if I have time.
