Wearing Coloured Lenses for the First Time: A Step-by-Step Guide

Those coloured lenses that you just got have probably already been taken out of their box, and you're holding them by the rim while trying to work up the courage to put them into your eye. Hold that thought. Every single person who puts on colour contact lenses has felt the same way when they were first learning to wear them. Nothing bad is happening. You need some practice with that muscle memory, which won't take more than a few tries.

At Koco Color Lenses, we get messages every day from people using their new colour lenses for the first time, and the nice thing is that getting used to colour contacts isn't as difficult as you might think. The key is in knowing the right technique rather than being confident.

Before You Even Touch a Lens

Nervous fingers can be clumsy. Not clean, dry fingers. Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly with a gentle soap and dry them with a lint-free towel. Paper towels and regular bath towels can leave tiny fibers that will irritate your eye and cling to the lens. Just this one step alone can alleviate the majority of the problems reported by new wearers in their first week.

Be sure to cut your fingernails if they are long or sharp. Having long nails is the leading cause of ripped lenses or scratched corneas in new wearers. Sit yourself down in front of a well-lit mirror. It’s preferable to do this while sitting at a table because it provides more stability for your hands.

Putting In Your well-lit mirror. Koco Coloured Lenses

Step 1: Check the lens. 

Place the lens between your fingers and check its appearance in the light. It should make a perfect “U.” If it bulges like an upside-down bowl, the lens is upside down, and you’ll have to put it back right before moving forward. Wearing the lens turned inside out won’t harm you, but it will irritate and be noticeably off-centre, which is why many people believe that colored lenses “don’t agree with their eyes” when all it takes is flipping the lens.

Step 2: Hold your eye open. 

Use your opposite hand to carefully pull down your lower eyelid with your middle finger, while the hand that holds the contact lens lifts your upper eyelid with a finger. That way, you avoid sudden blinking, which is usually the trigger for beginners to flinch unexpectedly.

Step 3: Place and release. 

Gaze either upwards or straight ahead, whatever you find more comfortable, and guide the lens into the white part of your eye. Do not aim the lens at the pupil. Touch it to the eye's surface gently and release the eyelids. Blink a couple of times slowly.

Step 4: Test the comfort level. 

Correctly positioned lenses should be barely noticeable immediately. If you can feel the lens even after several blinks, it might have slipped out of position or be placed upside down;  don’t force yourself to wear the irritating lens. Take it out and repeat from Step 2.

Repeat the procedure for the second eye and remember to place the lenses into the same eyes every time. This little trick will help you never mistake your lenses' positions since their differences might be significant if you wear colored lenses or lenses with some correction.

Taking Off Your Coloured Lenses

Removing is more difficult for new users than inserting, mostly since they pinch the lens off the eye like a contact lens case lid pinching. They should not do it that way, and that is the quickest way to become frustrated.

Step 1  Wash hands: Like before, it is important to have dry and clean fingers only.

Step 2  Eyes up and pull down:  Clean hands should be used to pull the lower eyelid down using the middle finger and looking upwards.

Step 3  Slide, do not pinch: The contact lens should be touched gently by the index finger and slid down on the white part of the eye, below the iris.

From there, it can be easily lifted from the eye without resistance using the thumb and index finger pinch. When removing directly from the cornea, discomfort is caused since sliding down takes out almost all the effort.

Step 4  Storage instructions: First, rinse the lens with new multipurpose solution, then put it in a clean case; do not reuse old solution; always use new solution. For the users of Koco’s 1-day lenses, discard the used ones without any cleaning process involved; that is precisely why many new users start with them.

Why First-Timers Do Better With Koco Color Lenses

Most of the friction associated with tinted contacts has nothing to do with the method; it has everything to do with the quality of the lenses themselves. Poorly produced pigment results in lenses that are stiff and difficult to fold and insert; the lack of moisture causes dryness by midday. Koco Color Lenses are made from medical-grade, biocompatible hydrogel with a specially engineered hydration layer, which means that the awkwardness of inserting the contact that seems so impossible on Day 1 becomes simple and natural by Day 3; the lens does not fight the process at all.

One of the key features of Koco lenses is one that few international brands take into consideration at all: The pigment designed to contrast with dark irises, as opposed to just blending into a light-colored ring around the eye. For a new user, this makes a big difference: wearing a lens that looks clear and natural right away encourages continued use much more than a lens that takes three tries to look like its proper color. It is here that Koco Color Lenses offer a subtle advantage over many of the imported generic brands new users try.

A Few Honest Tips From Us

• Practise on a day when you’re not rushed, and take ten relaxed minutes for yourself on your first attempt.

• Don’t sleep in contact lenses which are not labelled as being designed for wearing during night-time, even if they appear comfortable.

• If your lens makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, don’t persevere; take it out, clean it, and put it in again.

• Always keep your lens case (or 1-day packaging) in one place so that you won’t be searching for it when you’re groggy in the morning.

All people who now manage to insert lenses in less than ten seconds have started right from where you are today. It always takes a while to get into something new. With high-quality contacts on your side, however, the process won’t take long at all. Choose from our full range of comfortably wearable Koco Color Lenses and begin your experience with coloured lenses using a brand made with beginners in mind.