Should You Buy Cheap Color Contact Lenses?

It's pretty easy to find inexpensive color contact lenses that can be purchased cheaply, but is it a good idea to buy them? Your ophthalmologist usually sells contacts for the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). If this is your first time buying contact lenses you are probably locked into buying locally since you will need to have an eye exam so you can get a prescription and be fitted for the lenses. If you already have a prescription, then it's time to start shopping!

When you go around trying to buy "cheap" things, you usually end up getting what you pay for, or worse. Usually those cheap products will end up costing you more in the long run. Luckily, with color contact lenses, you can get high-quality, brand name products at huge discounts. You can really save a lot of money just by shopping in the right places. You get exactly the same contacts that you would get from an ophthalmologist but at a drastically lower price.

Now with that said, you will definitely want to be careful when bargain shopping for color contact lenses. There are definitely some low-quality, off-brand products out there that could be harmful to your eyes.

"Many people who purchase these [cheap color] contact lenses just walk into a gas station or a flea market and pay $15 for a pair without any information on the proper use of the lenses," says Troy Hunt, a contact lens technician that works at the Bloomington Gailey Eye Clinic. "As is the case with many illegal colored contacts, they end up not fitting your eye and put an extreme amount of pressure on your cornea which can cause corneal ulcers." You should definitely make sure that the contact lenses that you end up purchasing are produced by a trustworthy corrective lens manufacturer.

Oddly enough, sometimes your eye doctor doesn't even have color contacts in the color you want on hand. Ever notice how you have to wait and wait and wait for your contact lenses when you order them through an optometrist? It's simply impossible for most local brick-and-mortar stores to carry every single type of contact lens available. So instead, they just take your order and then buy them from their distributor. Then you wait for them to receive them. And then you have to go pick them up. What a hassle, and a waste of time, too. You could have just ordered them from the distributor yourself and cut out the middleman...

The trick to getting color contacts as quickly as possible is to order them yourself from the manufacturer/distributor/wholesaler. You get exactly the same quality contacts that your eye doctor would have sold you, but this way you save money. How much? It depends, but usually it's about one quarter, or 25 percent, of retail. That adds up!

All you really need to do is shop around, order them from the right places, and you can really cash in on some great deals while still getting your color contact lenses. You will also save some time as well because you do not have to walk back and forth to one store and wait for them to have the contacts you want in stock. Typically you will receive your color contact lenses in 3-4 days by mail.