My glasses are only a year old. I intentionally got featherweight plus lenses because i thought they were more durable and scratch resistant than regular plastic lenses. However some kind of coating seems to be peeling off my glasses, there are tons of spots where its obvious the coating is shrinking and coming off and the coating on the edges of the lenses is gone. What coating is this exactly? Does anyone know if i can take my glasses back to lenscrafters and have the coating grinded off and reapplied to get rid of these dots? I intend to call lenscrafters but i figure i’d ask here as well.
“Featherweight plus”? If that means polycarbonate, then you’ve got it backwards – polycarbonate lenses are particularly soft, and susceptible to scratches (it’s part of the trade-off of shatter resistance). There’s usually an antiscratch coating, but they can’t put it over the anti-reflection coating, which is probably what’s flaking off. The coating is removable (as your’e discovering, heh), but I don’t think it can be reapplied in the office. FWIW, I consider myself lucky if the coating stays intact for a full year.
It sounds like they should replace them as thay layer isn’t something that is suppsoed to come off of course but there isn’t any easy to get it back on. It would probably be cheaper and faster to just make a new set.
You could always bring them back to be cleaned and ask them what’s happening to them.
More than likely it’s an anti-glare coating, which peels off easily. Not anti-scratch, that’s something else.
It often happens if you use lens cleaner for non-glare lenses (you need to use either just water or cleaner specifically for coated lenses).
Personally, I have polycarb lenses without anti-glare and they are quite durable.
Crap, its probably that then. I use windex and other chemical cleaners to clean my glasses.
Maybe i can get the anti-glare taken off completely at lenscrafters.
Yep, that’s it. If you take them back to where you got them, they might replace the lenses for you. I don’t know Lenscrafter’s policy, but where my hubby works, they’ll fix or replace your glasses if anything goes wrong with them within a year—even if it’s not a defect in materials or workmanship, like if you sit on them or your dog chews them up or something.
If the peeling film has a greenish tinge to it, you’re dealing with the anti-reflective coating. This coating is very weak and should NEVER be exposed to anything like Windex. You may not want to mention the Windex when you take them in.
Now for the cold truth about glasses.
The anti-scratch coating is applied by the lens manufacturer, not the place that makes the glasses. This may seem like no big diff, but it is. The glasses places buy the lenses already ground different levels. In most cases, the doctor will prescribe things a little different then the way the lenses come from the box so the glasses retailer will grind them to match that prescription. This results in the scratch coating being ground off of at least one side of the lenses. Furthermore, the anti-reflective coating is very easy to scratch and is applied over the anti-scratch coating. This renders the anti-scratch coating moot. When you buy the scratch protection all you’re really getting in many cases is the warranty that comes with it.
Finally, the anti-reflective coating is of dubious value in any case. It’s very delicate and it is very hard to keep clean. For most people, it’s not worth it.