I’m having a hard time getting my glasses really clean, and I’m noticing that dirty glasses tend to give me visual headaches.
I tried washing them with water and soap, but rubbing them with a clean cloth tends to leave smear marks, and wiping with tissue paper tends to leave tiny bits of tissue all over.
What’s a good method for getting glasses really clean? Should I use windex or something?
What are the lenses made from? And what does the manufacturer suggest? They usually know.
FOR PETES SAKE DO -NOT- USE WINDEX!!!
Windex can ROYALLY screw up your glasses, and can even remove any sort of scratch resistant coating that you may have on it.
Use mild -hand- soap and warm water,
use a clean cotton t-shirt to dry with, dry in a circular motion.
Alternatively you can buy special glasses drying cloths that do work wonders (they are unnecessary though, once you learn ‘the trick’ with a t-shirt you do not end up with smears, ‘the trick’ seems to be different for everyone though. 
), or special one-shot disposable glasses cleaning moist-towlet types of things that do work wonders but cost and arm and a leg.
The best thing I’ve ever used on my glasses is sunglasses cleaner. Go to a Sunglasses Hut at your local mall and pick up some cleaner and a lint free cloth. After that you won’t even realize that you have them on. Or I’ve found that Dawn works pretty well. Or I have on occasion taken them to Lens Crafters (where I got them) and had them clean them, but that’s usually when I need adjustments made to them as well.
Heck, I’ve always had success with just running the lenses under the hot water tap and drying them off with a hefty paper towel (Bounty, Brawn, etc.).
I’ve always used Bausch & Lomb Sigh Savers - pre-moistened (with isopropyl alcohol) lens cleaning tissues. They do the trick quite nicely.
Here’s the relevant page:
http://www.bausch.com/us/vision/products/eyeglass/
You can pick up a box of these at Costco, or whatever your local bulk-warehouse deal is called, but it looks from the webpage that you can also get them at pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens, though I’ve never seen them there myself.
FOR PETES SAKE DO -NOT- USE WINDEX!!!
Oh great. Now you tell me.
Perhaps you have a different kind of Windex than I have? I have been using it (or a home-made substitute) for over 10 years on several pairs of glasses (plastic lenses) and I challenge you to find a single scratch of any size anywhere on them.
Here’s my formula for home-made Windex. I believe it is chemically identical, or at least similar, but omits the blue dye, so it doesn’t accumulate in the cracks and make your glasses blue:
1/2 cup household ammonia
1/8 cup vinegar
add distilled water to make 1 quart. This fits nicely in a common household sprayer.
Windex is non-abrasive. If you have been getting scratches, I suggest you check the material used to wipe – could that be the source of abrasion? Or maybe you just grind too hard?
I gotta get me some of those. I’ve had many sighs that I wished I had saved.
{sigh}
It’s recommended to not use any type of paper product on eyeglasses (even with glass lenses) unless it’s specifically made for that purpose. Most paper towels, tissues, toilet paper etc. have some wood fiber that can scratch.
I bought a small ultrasonic tank-type cleaner (of the type that is used to clean jewelry) and I keep it filled with a half-strength mixture of a degreasing solution called Clear Magic.
Many bar and liquid soaps contain oils to make them gentler on the hands. These same oils will leave smears on your glasses. The cheaper brands of dishsoap or shampoo usually do not have this problem.
Cheap vodka and a paper napkin.
Works like a charm.
Rub your finger over the top of the dish detergent bottle (just to get a small amount), and use with water to clean the glasses. I have dried mine with high-quality paper towels (e.g. Bounty) for years with no bad effects.
My husband is an optician, and he recommends a microfiber cloth (though I catch him using his shirttail from time to time). You can get them wherever they sell glasses or sunglasses. You can use them dry, without any soap or water. When the cloth gets dirty, just stick it into the pocket of your jeans and run it through the wash.
As others have said, ammonia will blitz many UV and scratch-resistant coatings, so don’t use Windex unless you have plain, uncoated lenses.
The microfiber cloth works great, because you don’t need any cleaning fluid to use it. Failing that, pick up some cleaning solution and a lint-free cloth at your local optometrist’s.
The reason Windex is bad is because it will remove the scratch-free coating, assuming your glasses have a scratch-free coating. If they don’t have the coating, obviously the Windex can’t hurt them much. OK, on preview I notice that Podkayne just said the exact same thing re the scratch-resistant coatings, and also correctly pointed out that Windex will wipe out the UV coating too, so, uh, yeah. What Podkayne said.