Lens review: ICK Animate Blue

Hi everyone!

It's time for another circle lens review and this time we'll go over the ICK Animate Blue lenses! This is probably gonna sound silly but there's something with ICK lenses that excite me, I just really like the designs and the color shades. And it says Optimus Prime on the vials, almost. xD

Let's do this!

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 15.0 mm

Water content: 42%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

I'm not gonna lie, this was a lens that I bought because of the name. I've never seen a lens called Animate before and so it piqued my interest as something peculiar and worth trying. Not to mention that the name does hold rather true to the design of the lens itself, seeing how it has a cartoony feel to it with bold, harsh lines and a single, upbeat blue color.

One lens in. It was cloudy outside so this photo is pretty dark.

Of course the color was bound to darken a bit once worn, you can tell already by looking at the lenses in their vials that the color pixels are quite sparse and there's a whole bunch of transparency between. Thankfully the color doesn't get muddled in any way and it's still a lively shade – and cartoony indeed. It's actually cute in its boldness and I like how simple it is because, in this case, it makes the overall effect more striking.

The blue is a fresh color, a bit like aqua in tone and there's a lovely hint of a 'halo effect' where the lens overlaps the size of my natural iris. The limbal ring is a deep black and unmissable in it's chunkiness, it creates a dolly eye look and draws focus to the eyes. Also, when you look closer you will notice that the streaked lines are actually not fully drawn lines but dotted lines.

Lens photos below!

All photos taken by me around a June noon with a semi-clear sky, the sun trolled me though and it was super bright before but as soon as I was ready to take photos it went and hid under a veil of clouds and barely came out. There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Natural room light indoors.

Yellow room light indoors.

Unlit corridor. Poor natural light in the distance.

Flash photo.

Facing window. Not sun side. (notice halo effect!)

Outdoors, back against the sun. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing cloudy sky while standing under a shadow.

Outdoors, facing the sun while it's hidden behind clouds.

Outdoors, facing the sun.

I love this lens – it's fresh, exciting and makes me feel like a living cartoon haha. It's a really nice lens, has an appealing blue color and comes with a big enlargement effect. The color coverage is also solid and there's really nothing to dislike, except maybe a wish that the comfort was a bit better.

The comfort for these, based on my first impressions (again, lenses had expired by the time I got around to do this review, so I only wore them for the photos and thus can't grade comfort properly) was mediocre to good; I felt them in my eyes and they were otherwise tolerable but they felt almost scratchy when I moved my gaze around? It did settle and the discomfort did lessen noticeably after a while but I don't know, I can't really imagine them being super comfortable based on my quick run. I would estimate wearing time somewhere around 2-3 hours on my super dry eyes, which is really average. Friendly reminder though to take my comfort grade with a grain of salt because of aforementioned reason and also, I do have stupidly sensitive eyes.

Overall I would still recommend giving these a try if you like the aesthetic of these lenses. It would be suitable for cosplaying and any kind of funky fashion that you want to spice up. It's a fun lens with a great color and a striking halo effect in good light conditions.

Distance photo!

Wanna see another color?
I gotcha: Green

Short summary:

Color: 7/10 

A peppy, fresh aqua blue with a lot of personality.

Design: 8/10 

Chunky, cartoony design that's really bold and stylized. Really fun lens!

Opacity: 7/10

My eye color affects the outcome but it's very obviously still blue, so I don't doubt the coverage.

Enlargement: 7/10 

It's a big eyes lens, will provide a dolly look with that thick black rim.

Comfort: 5/10 

Seems average but still kinda okay; I felt them in my eyes as a bit scratchy until they eventually settled. Estimated 2-3 hours of wear on super dry eyes.

Naturalness: 3/10 

A bit too... animated.

Thanks for reading my blog! Would you wear 'anime' lenses like this?

Shiro Samurai out ~