Color Enhancing Lenses vs. Polarized Lenses: What are they best for?

Color enhancing sunglasses have made a splash in the eyewear scene, with popular models like Oakley PRIZM and Costa 580. But if you’re an avid sunglasses-wearer and have ever worn POLARIZED shades, you’ve probably noticed that they make colors a bit more saturated, too. So aren’t polarized and color enhancing lenses the same thing? 

How do polarized lenses work? 

If you’ve ever spent time on a lake, or driving on a main road, you’ve probably noticed the blinding glare that bounces off of things like water, or the back of a car. That’s the kind of light that polarized sunglasses help with!

Glare is also called “horizontal light”, so polarized shades BLOCK horizontal light from passing through the lenses, and only let vertical light through.

Besides just blocking glare, they also increase your depth perception, make your vision crisper, and make some colors appear more saturated.

If you wanna learn even more about how they work, you can check out our blog posts on polarized lenses. 

What are polarized lenses best for?  

Since glare happens on highly reflective surfaces, polarized lenses could be right for you if you spend time on the road or doing outdoor activities like water and snow sports. For example, since white (not yellow, hopefully) snow is super reflective, polarization is really helpful for skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers, snowshoers, snow-whatever-else-ers, you get the idea.

And with summer activities in full swing, those of you who spend time fishing, boating, swimming, or on the beach can definitely benefit from polarized sunglasses! 

Polarized lenses could also be right for you if you deal with eye sensitivity or light-induced migraines, since they protect against blinding light that triggers pain for some people. 

Protecting your eyes properly from damaging sun rays in general can prevent serious issues like macular degeneration. Plus, adding polarization to that can also make being outside in the glaring sun overall more comfortable.

How do color enhancing lenses work? 

Color enhancing lenses are exactly what they sound like– they’re lenses that make colors pop! Unlike polarized lenses that filter out horizontal light waves, color enhancing lenses work by filtering out visual areas where color wavelengths overlap, and block muddier wavelengths that distract from the colors we're most sensitive to.

They also balance color intensity, so that the world around you generally looks more… well… pleasing to the eye! They make contrast and contours appear more defined and intense, too, which helps with your vision and increases depth perception and even reaction time!

Basically, they intensify the range of colors we can see, and turn off less desirable light wavelengths. Since they enhance the most pleasing colors, they make the world unbelievably beautiful to look at. You can learn even more about how color enhancing lenses work in our other posts. 

When are color enhancing lenses best for? 

There’s lots of unique things that color enhancing lenses are useful for, especially with certain outdoor activities. For example, they’re super helpful for performance in sports where there isn’t a lot of color contrast in the environment; golfing, tennis, hunting, in and offshore fishing, snowboarding, and mountain biking, to name a few.

Basically you’ll find them useful if seeing more contrast and more colors will help! Plus, when you’re out in nature (which is amazing for you anyways) it’ll be like you’re looking at everything for the first time– that’s how incredible they are at enhancing the world around you!

Since these shades increase the intensity of colors like green, blue, red, and brown, they can improve your sports performance and just generally make being outside more colorful and enjoyable! So why not enhance your view? 

Polarized vs. Color Enhancing Lenses

Polarized lenses block glare. This helps increase your depth perception and saturate colors to an extent, and are genuinely just helpful for being in situations where the light could hurt your eyes, especially when you are outdoors for an extended amount of time.

Color enhancing lenses are also great for the outdoors and are specifically designed to make everything around you more… colorful and beautiful! Instead of glare, these lenses target specific color wavelengths to increase color separation and intensity. They offer great all-around sun protection and can give you a super competitive edge in any outdoor activity, and protect your eyes from bright light.

Why not both?

If you're anything like us, you might be thinking - that sounds great. I want to block glare AND increase color saturation and contrast. Well, we've got you covered.

At Fuse Lenses, it’s not only possible, but EASY, stylish, and affordable to get the best of both worlds! 

Our new Fuse AMP Color Enhancing lenses offer the best of both worlds. The AMP Grey is best for boosting color when you’re in forests or open fields; the AMP Brown helps define rocky, sandy, and mountainous terrain, and the AMP Carbon is ideal if you spend time at the beach, or just generally in the bright sun. AMP Glacier is great for the open ocean, forests, or rocky terrain. 

But the kicker? All of our AMP models are in the Fuse +Plus line, which means that aside from being powerful color enhancing lenses, they’re also POLARIZED! Plus, they have an anti-reflective coating AND come with a lifetime warranty. 

If you learned something new about polarized lenses, color enhancing lenses, or both - let us know! Or, if you've still got questions - reach out to our team of lens experts at support.fuselenses.com