Your sunglasses lens supplier - questions answered
Q: How quickly can you get your lenses to my factory?
A: Where stocks exist we can ship within a week. Otherwise we agree our production schedule with you when you place your order. With Polaroid Eyewear’s unique Thermofusion™ Technology manufacture technique we can produce up to 70 lenses per minute, allowing us to fulfil your order quicker than most manufacturers.
Q:What guarantees can you provide?
A: Polaroid Eyewear lenses exceed all international quality standards. As soon as we accept your order, you can be assured that your requirements have our full commitment. We will support your production team in ensuring assembly runs without delay or error.
Q: What’s the minimum order quantity?
A: Typically our order quantities are between 10,000 and 100,000 lens pairs. For items in stock, you can order as few as 100 lens pairs. For items we need to tailor-make, the minimum order quantity is 5,000 lens pairs.
Q: How much do they cost?
A: Polaroid Eyewear is a market leader in producing high quality polarizing lenses for sunglasses. We innovate with leading-edge lens materials and manufacture techniques to create the best optical quality polarized lenses on the market. Despite all this, our polarized lenses remain highly competitively priced. All prices are available on request.
Q: How do I order?
A: Just call or email us. We will meet with you to understand your requirements and provide you with further details of our capability, samples and technical specifications including lens transmittance data.
Q: What sizes do you offer?
A: We currently produce lenses in 11 different sizes. See all our option here.
Q: What colours do you offer?
A: We have 12 different colours for you to choose from with new colours being introduced regularly. See all our options.
Q: What curvature do you offer?
A: We stock most lenses in 2, 4, 6 or 8 base, plus toric lenses, but are we try to accommodate every request. Please contact us to discuss your needs.
Q: What thicknesses do you offer?
A: We can create any lens to a thickness of 0.6mm, 0.8mm, 1.0mm, 1.2mm, 1.4mm and 1.6mm. Our PTX4000 lens material
allows us to create lenses that are both thinner and stronger than many other manufacturers.
Q: Can you send me some samples?
A: Of course! We will send them free of charge. Please let us know what you’d like to see and where to send them to you.
Q: Do you offer prescription lenses?
A: No. However, carefully selected suppliers and retailers offer prescription lenses with the Polaroid brand, under license agreements.
Q: Do you offer toric lenses?
A: Yes. Our toric lenses provide distortion-free comfort. These unique lenses closely conform to the contour of the face while maximizing vision, comfort and protection. Toric lenses have two different base curves — one vertical and one horizontal — that follow the curve of the eye.
Q: I need a particular size which is not shown on your website. Do you tailor make lenses?
A: We always try to accommodate every request. We’ve been successfully providing tailor-made sizes to our customers for many years. Please contact us to discuss your particular needs.
Q: Can I visit your company?
A:Customers are more than welcome to see our state-of-the-art production facility at the Vale of Leven, Scotland, UK. Please call to arrange an appointment.
Q: Do you only offer polarized lenses?
A: Yes we do – it’s our specialist area of expertise. Polaroid Eyewear is world-famous for its innovations in polarized lens technology and as a leading OEM supplier of quality polarized lenses Polaroid Eyewear helps sunglass brand owners and their distributors increase margins on their existing sunglass ranges and appeal to new segments – such as those seeking performance eyewear for sports, driving and other outdoor activities.
Q: What are the advantages of Thermofusion™ Technology?
A: Only Thermofusion™ Technology guarantees to preserve total polarizing capability and offer distortion-free vision.Traditional manufacturing techniques often result in lenses which warp the wearer’s perception of sizes, shapes and distances, often without them even realizing. Other techniques can offer decent optics but greatly compromise polarizing efficiency. Thermofusion™ Technology produces lenses which are slightly thicker at the centre and tapered towards the edges. Thermofusion™ Technology, in effect, optically ‘fine-tunes’ the lens while curving it - resulting in optically perfect polarized lenses. Thermofusion™ Technology also allows us greater flexibility in creating greater curvature in our polarized lenses, so we can produce polarized lenses for 2-base frames, 4-base frames, 6-base frames, 8-base frames and 6-base masks. We can even produce polarized toric lenses for curved fashion styles.
Q: Are your lenses tested and approved by any independent certification laboratories?
A: Yes, our lenses have been approved and tested by Certottica, COLTS®, Inspec and Alutec.
Tests undertaken include:
- Ophthalmic testing: ANSI Z80.3, EN 1836, AS/NZS1067, CSA Z94.5
- Safety testing: EN 166, EN 167, EN 168, EN 169
- Laboratories Standard tests: abrasion and environmental tests, steel wool, falling sand, cloth abrasion, cycle humidity, crosshatch adhesion, contact angle, cosmetic inspection, spectral analysis, static load, haze equipment, steel wool abrasion, BYK Gardner HazeGard, cycle humidity oven.
Q: What is the optical quality of your lenses?
A: Polaroid Eyewear’s PTX4000 polarized lenses are the most extensively tested Polaroid Eyewear lens. Hundreds of attributes are tested across thousands of lens pairs and every lens passes a thorough quality-assurance process. We are a single-source supplier of consistently high quality polarized lenses. Our lenses easily meet global standards for optical performance and quality.
- European Standard EN 1836:2005 for Polarizing Filter – Optical Class 1
- American Standard ANSI Z80.3-2001 for General Purpose Type 1(21CFR 801.410) Polarizing Lens including FDA Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations 801.410
- Australian Standard AS/NZ 1067:2003 for General Purpose Polarizing Sunglasses and the Australian Cancer Council
- Chinese Standard QB 2457-99 for General Purpose Polarizing Lens
Q: Are you EU Class 1?
A: Yes the huge majority of our lenses are EU Class 1 as well as satisfying Australian, Chinese and US standards, allowing the creation of a single-specification sunglass collection for retail across Australia, Asia, Europe and the United States. Due to the degree of curvature required, some of our extreme sizes and thicknesses achieve an optical standard of Class 2. These lenses still meet the standards for European markets, and easily satisfy the requirements for sunglasses in the United States, where entry rules on optical class are significantly lower than in Europe.
Please call us for more details.
Q: What kind of service can I expect?
A: We have a high level of support for factories in the Far East including a dedicated hotline to Polaroid Eyewear experts at our UK production facility. Our Technical and Sales Support Managers are available to visit glazing factories and subcontractors in Europe and Asia to ensure your production runs smoothly.If you cannot find the answer to your query here, please contact us and we will be happy to help.