The last couple of months I’ve taken up raquetball. Great sport. I have a problem though.
The goggles I wear steam up at a moment’s notice. Basically I end up wearing them on my forehead while I play because even if I wipe them before a volley they fog up shortly. I’ve tried wearing a sweat band hoping that it would keep some sweat away from my eyes but this doesn’t help.
What can I do about these foggy goggles?
You need a surfactant coating on the inside of the goggles so that the water forms a continuous film, rather than individual beads.
There are sprays that you can get to use on the goggles.
A simpler and cheaper way is to lick a finger, wipe it across a soap-bar, then rub the inside of the goggles with your finger.
It’s best to do this with clean hands, so that you dont get oil from your finger onto the goggles, and to have the goggles slightly wet when you do it.
Takes a bit of practice to get it right.
You mean like Rain-X? Do they sell these sprays at sports stores?
I don’t know what’s in Rain-X, so I wouldn’t use it near my eyes. Might be OK, might not.
I’ve only ever bought the sprays from bike shops, 'coz that’s what I needed it for - to stop the fog build up inside the goggles when I used to have a bike.
They probably do sell the sprays in other sport stores, the Carerra goggles I used to wear are exactly the same ones that skiers wear.
Well, I don’t know much about raquetball goggles but when I used to scuba dive the easiest way to keep your goggles from fogging up was to spit on them.
Just hock a good one into the goggles, smear it all around, rinse 'em off (but don’t wipe them down) and you’re good to go.
Here’s a story about anti-fogging.
It mentions Rain-X specifically:
On preview, the story also mentions spit, which is the classic diver’s remedy, as XJETGIRLX says. It also mentions potato, apple and car-wax.
Why are you wearing goggles when you play racquetball? When I played racquetball, the appropriate eyewear was a protective frame without lenses. Has this changed?
Maybe goggles isn’t quite the right word. The Wilson web page refers to them simply as “eyeware.” These are the ones I have and which the gym I use has. It looks like this one looks like it would not fog up as badly because of being more open.
I looked around a few sporting goods sites and don’t see anything that doesn’t have lenses.
oops.
It looks like this one looks like it would not fog up as badly because of being more open.
I looked around a few sporting goods sites and don’t see anything that doesn’t have lenses.
Have you tried cleaning the inside of the goggles with toothpaste? Not the gel kind but the paste.
I know it sounds weird but if you use that or soft scrub to clean the inside of the lenses, using your finger to scrub, rinse them ,repeat and then while you are dressing apply a defog to the inside of the lenses. You can pick some up from your local dive store. Just before you hit the court rinse the defog off and you should have no problems.
You only need to do the toothpaste trick once but use the defog each time before you play and make sure the lenses are dry when you apply it or it won’t work.
This is a common practice when a person buys a new mask for scuba diving or snorkeling. Let me know if it works with your goggles.
Go check a display of swimmng goggles at a decent sporting
goods store. I got an antifog spray from Speedo, but I’m
sure there are other brands.
I have a nifty little “no fog” cloth that I use while skiing. Just wipe down my goggles in the morning, and I’m good to go all day. Don’t know if it would work for you, but I think they’re pretty common in ski shops.