Contact Lenses for Movies.

[Disaster2012]

Hey, all! I like to make movies and collect websites for props and stuff. So, I was wondering if any of you know of any good websites to buy coloured contact lenses. Any help would be awesome!

[alcar]

There (http://tinyurl.com/r7os4e).

[Tundra]

Be VERY careful with this. Those are banned in Australia, because they're dangerous.

[TwistedFirestarter]

Really? I've never heard anything like that, and the news here love fearmongering...

[Tundra]

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1169594 Really? This article says they're banned in the US too.

[Dwiesel McAllister]

Yeah, those things can be pretty dangerous. I have pretty bad eyes, and though I'm not considering contacts (because I would put my eye out. That, and eyes are sooo disgusting), I was under the impression that those are specifically fitted to your eye. They require a lot of maintenance, too.

I think your best bet (though an expensive one) would be to encourage your actors to purchase coloured contact lenses only if they already need glasses, or something along those lines.

[ZeissIkon]

The novelty contacts are banned because, without medical supervision, eye infections can occur and a wearer who hasn't been through orientation may not seek treatment promptly. I wore contact lenses (the old rigid kind) off and on for about thirty years, without problems (other than lack of money to buy new lenses from time to time). Soft lenses (the kind used for color changing lenses and movie effects) are more prone to transferring infection to the eye and require much more stringent and detailed cleaning -- and disposable lenses (that aren't durable enough to stand that cleaning regimen) that are reused are the worst sort for that. Further, wearing lenses for longer than 10-12 hours per day has been shown to greatly increase risk of eye infections, even with proper medical supervision.

Essentially, color contacts aren't banned (probably in Australia, certainly in the United States) so much as considered a prescription-controlled item, much like hypodermic needles are in many locations. Any opthalmologist can prescribe them for anyone, regardless of refractive errors or lack thereof.