Lens review: ICK Garnet Green

Booyah, hi there!

And here I am again with another circle lens review to share. I will show the ICK Garnet Green today and I must admit that I had really high expectations for these, do you think they held up?

Let's get to it!

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 15.0 mm

Water content: 42%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

I had dubbed the Garnet series the "bishounen lenses" in my head before I even bought them, fun fact. :'D I'm a sucker for green lenses in general and I was really hoping that these would give this kind of mesmerizing depth and have a really eye-catching green color...do they?

One lens in.

My first impression was honestly... a bit torn. I feel like the design is pretty and certainly has depth, but that the darkness of the green makes the finer details get lost. Yes, I don't really like dark lenses too much, at least not when I'm specifically looking for cosplay lenses and that's exactly why I bought these. It's of course not a bad lens but these are absurdly dark when compared to how light and bright the Garnet Violets were, almost as if from a different series. :S I guess the green is just more prone to blend with my real eye color or something...? I honestly don't know.

It's a big lens and totally dolly, it's good if you are looking for these big doll eyes that you can drown in. It's like dark gems in a way!

Lens photos below!

All photos taken by yours truly during a July evening with a mostly clear sky. 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.

Flash photo.

Standing in a corridor, natural light from the side.

Unlit corridor, really poor natural light in the far distance.

Facing a window. (not sun side)

Outdoors, back against sun. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing the direction of the light while standing under a shadow.

Outdoors, facing the sun.

Okay, I will admit that most of my photos above are darker than what I commonly have as this review was done late on the evening (the sun was to the side instead of in front of my kitchen window, which does make a difference). The color is like a darker emerald or forest green shade or such, I guess it's a nice color if you like dark lenses. They blend a bit towards the center, which means that the color doesn't end super abruptly but is phased out to get replaced by your actual eye color towards the center – this is always a good thing as I think that the 'clashing' look can really disrupt the illusion many times.

I had a weird experience with the comfort. The first two tries I tried putting on one of the lenses in my right eye it was insanely scratchy and impossible to wear! I cleaned and checked the lens twice but saw no visible defects and so I started wondering if I had gotten a Monday example, but the third time I tried putting it on the left eye and then suddenly it was perfect? No idea, maybe there was dirt, it was just weird. The other lens was fine.

But yeah, the actual comfort – these felt really thin, comfortable and I did not feel them in my eyes much at all, so basically invisible to wear. I think that I could wear these for around the 4-5 hour range, which is above average for my super dry and sensitive eyes.

So yeah, summa summarum is that while these didn't live up to my personal expectations it's still a good lens overall and I can't take that away. My main disappointment is simply because the design is really nice for the "pretty boy" type characters but the dark color makes it so that they just look black, or almost black, from a distance and that just won't do on cosplay photos as colors need to be really vibrant. I will admit though that up close the color is really beautiful.
But yeah, this would be a nice lens for j-fashion, many lolita styles and such. No idea how it would perform on other eye colors though as I have light blue-gray eyes.

Distance photo.

Want to see the ICK Garnet lenses in other colors?
I have done some more: Violet, Red

Short summary:

Color: 6/10
Darker than expected, a dark forest or perhaps emerald green color.

Design: 7/10

Has a notable depth and the 'burst' style design overall is really appealing.

Opacity: 7/10

Solid color coverage, changes my eye color.

Enlargement: 8/10

Gives the illusion of really big eyes. Feels even bigger because of the blackness too.

Comfort: 7/10

Appears to be really thin and comfortable. Estimated 4-5 hours on very dry eyes, which is good.

Naturalness: 3/10

Can't really claim these to be natural, size is the main thing that looks off.

Thank for reading this far, ciao!

Shiro Samurai out.