Cleaning your eyeglasses daily is the best way to keep them beautiful and, most importantly, ensure brightness and clarity, helping you see clearly without blur or fatigue. However, not everyone cleans them properly.
Some common mistakes in cleaning eyeglasses make them foggy and scratched. (Photo: Glass Helper)
Common mistakes in cleaning eyeglasses
According to The Sun, BS Daniel Hardiman-McCartney, clinical adviser at the London College of Ophthalmology (UK), points out the common mistakes that people should avoid when cleaning their eyeglasses:
Cleaning eyeglasses with dish soap
Dish soap and warm water is the most common mixture used to wipe eyeglasses, but in fact, this mixture will quickly damage your glasses.
The cleaning agents that help remove grease from dish soap will damage the delicate thin lens coating on the glasses. “In the end, everyone around will notice the heavy damage on the surface of your lens, and from a distance, it looks like your glasses are dirty,” BS Daniel said.
Cleaning eyeglasses with clothes
It’s too easy when you simply wipe your glasses with a T-shirt or dress. However, this is one of the mistakes in cleaning eyeglasses, which is a poor treatment for your glasses.
BS Daniel advised: “You may rub dust particles – things that are not always visible to the naked eye – onto your glasses. Small dirt particles not only do not clean the glasses, but they can also cause many small scratches on the lenses. No matter how clean your clothes are, they can still scratch the lenses.”
Cleaning eyeglasses with hand sanitizer
Hand sanitizer, something that we see everywhere during the pandemic, is also too strong a cleaning agent for eyeglasses. The alcohol in this product will corrode the lens coating and eyeglass frames.
Cleaning eyeglasses with household glass cleaner
Do not use household glass cleaner to clean eyeglasses. (Photo: The Spruce)
Many people think that household glass cleaner can also be used for eyeglasses. In fact, the ingredients in household detergents are not intended for cleaning eyeglasses because they are truly harmful.
BS Daniel explained: “Household glass cleaning agents tend to smear when used to wipe eyeglasses, and some chemical ingredients will erode the shiny paint layer on your eyeglass frames, so we advise against using them.”
Using saliva to clean eyeglasses
This is a mistake in cleaning eyeglasses that many people make. Saliva does not help clean eyeglasses but instead adds more bacteria. Therefore, it puts you at high risk of eye infections.
Using soap to clean eyeglasses
You can use mild soap to clean dirt or sticky oil on the frames, but keep them away from the lenses.
If you want to clean the frames with soap, create lather in your hand and apply it to the frames; gently rinse off the lather with warm water and always dry them carefully afterwards.
Cleaning glasses with hot water
Hot water will damage the protective coating of the eyeglasses. (Photo: Mouqy Eyewear)
Washing eyeglasses is a gentle way to clean the dust particles that can scratch your lenses, but hot water damages the glasses because it can erode the protective coating. It’s better to use warm water.
“Eyeglasses are very delicate and not designed to withstand high temperatures. Boiling water will cause particular damage,” Daniel explained.
Using rough paper towels to wipe glasses
Few people know that using paper towels with fiber is also one of the mistakes in cleaning eyeglasses. Fiber strands are the smallest magnets that attract dust, so if you use paper towels with fiber to wipe your glasses, you can scratch the glasses and leave harmful dust on them.
Most kitchen paper rolls can be used because they usually don’t have fiber. Children’s wipes are also good because they hardly contain alcohol.
The best way to clean eyeglasses
According to BS Daniel, non-alcoholic lens cleaning solution with a specialized lens cleaning cloth is the best choice for cleaning eyeglasses.
Most vision care professionals will provide you with a lens cleaning solution and a small fiber cloth when you buy your first pair of glasses, so make the most of these.
Small soft fiber lens cleaning cloths that can decompose lens cleaning fluid are also ideal for keeping your glasses transparent and spotless. However, according to BS Daniel, such cleaning cloths are quite expensive.
Lens cleaning cloths are ideal for cleaning eyeglasses, making your glasses transparent. (Photo: People Magazine)
Correctly using and storing glasses will keep them in good condition for a long time, and your eyes will always be perfectly protected.
Regarding the cleaning process, you need to gently wipe the lenses, frames, paying attention to carefully wiping the area where dust accumulates on the lenses.
According to VTC News