Lens review: ColourVue Crazy Lens Blind White

 Yo ho, mateys!

 

 I have a few more colored contact lens reviews to throw at you all before this year ends and here's one of the cooler ones! You see, I've long been curious about these 'blind eye' special effect lenses because they look so intense and eye-catching. Yet, funnily enough, I've never even tried a mesh type lens first to ease myself into the experience and, well, instead I jumped straight into the deep end by going for the ColourVue Crazy Lens Blind Whites lol. And while this particular brand's sfx lenses are now discontinued from the market there still exists other brands with blind eye lenses so yeah, if you're curious about what the wearing experience is like then continue reading! :D

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.0 mm
Water content: 45%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Okay so first let's make one thing abundantly clear – these lenses are an undeniably solid white through and through and it's very visible by just looking at the lenses in their little glass bottles. Yes, this means that there's zero opacity anywhere on the lenses and wearing them will effectively render you blind as a bat to the point you won't see fuckall of anything happening around you and I mean that in all serious seriousness; you won't have any functional vision of your own and if you plan to wear these lenses out to any event you _need_ someone to guide you around at all times or you will have a miserable time. So yeah, if the thought of having zero vision and fumbling around making your way forward by touch is uncomfortable to you then please don't buy these type of lenses and go for the mesh variants instead, which provide a similar look but retains some visibility, so that you can function independently.
This is the most extreme kind of cosmetic lenses along with scleras, it's not for everyone. Make sure that you can handle the loss of vision (also on a mental level) before purchase.

One lens in.

Wearing just one lens is a bit of a trippy feeling because it's equivalent to wearing an eyepatch or blocking out the other eye with your hand. The eye with the lens sees nothing but white and it feels a bit disorienting because you still have your other eye with full vision that's trying to compromise the shortfall of the blind eye. I want to note here that if you choose to only wear one lens to complete your look then you should be prepared for a headache at some point, due to the extra strain and compensation the seeing eye is being put through during the hours of wear. Just as a heads up. It's similar in principe to how people who wear correcting glasses daily get a headache if they don't wear them.

Lens photos below!

All close-up photos below are taken by Firith (for obvious reasons, aka I don't see shit) during noon with mostly sunny weather. All close-ups are free from color filters and the like and that's so that the colors would appear as true to life as possible.

Indoors, natural room light.

Indoors, yellow room light.

Flash photo.

Facing a window indoors, not sun side.

Outdoors, back against the sun. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing the sun while standing under a shadow.

Outdoors, facing the sun.

In all honesty the only thing I could see with both lenses on was like a solid milky white color that would slightly shift in shade to a warmer (yellowish) or colder (blueish/grayish) nuance depending on if I was indoors or outdoors, for example. So in essence the only visual information I retained was extremely vague at best, like when I stepped out of my apartment I could tell that I was outdoors because the white I was seeing got brighter. It's a bit hard to explain but trust me when I say that the only thing I could somewhat discern indoors was where a window was located – as in I would see the general outlines, which showed up as a blurry square (because my windows are rectangular) that was brighter than the rest of the white around it. I would also be able to tell if something, like waving my hand in front of my face, or someone passed in front of the window's light because I'd see a very simplified shadow being cast but I wouldn't be able to tell any features or even what it was, just that there was a fleeting shadow that obscured the light briefly. Oh and this shadow only appeared if the object in front was moving from one side to another, if it was stationary in front of the window then I wouldn't be able to tell that there was something there – as in no discernable shadow appears.

When I'm outdoors I'm 100% blind, I don't see anything whatsoever (except for the sun being an extra bright blob of white) and I wouldn't be able to tell if I was walking into someone before colliding or if someone's standing literally right in front of me. I can't stress it enough that you really need someone to act as your eyes because we sighted humans are so accustomed to being able to see, so that when you take that one sense we're taking for granted away, then suddenly it's a whole different world to navigate – and that can be really scary, and hazardous, if you're not prepared.

One thing I should maybe also mention, that is perhaps not so obvious, is that with both lenses on it's really hard for you to even know what direction you're facing. This also applies to what direction your eyes are looking at because, after all, you only see the same shade of white wherever you look so it's really difficult to even know if your eyes are physically looking in the direction you think you're looking at – after all there's no indicators. It's even harder if you have 'lazy eye' or strabismus (cross-eye) because without being able to see anything your eyes might just uncontrollably go wherever they want lol. So yeah, if you're trying to act as a model and get photographed it can be an additional challenge to even have your gaze being where it should be because you don't see anything that you can focus on and so your eyes might just aimlessly be somewhere else and not towards the camera at all – the prompt to "look at the camera!" doesn't work in this situation (you don't see the damn camera nor even the person holding it!) so you have to play it on habit and experience.

I didn't have the faintest idea at all times if I was looking left of right, up or down because all I saw was the same endless white regardless; there' no visual signals going to your brain that your eyes are even looking in the same direction because there's no information to be had so yeah, it can easily start to feel like you have no control and a sense of confusion can spread along with the disorientation. I don't know how many times I asked "are my eyes looking where they should be looking?" because I literally have no way to know.

If we ignore the obvious and intentionally self-imposed issue of not seeing anything, I'd like to say that in terms of comfort these lenses were surprisingly comfortable to wear. I didn't feel them at all and they were thin and went in without any issues. Yes, it can be a bit extra difficult to get them off because you don't see what you're doing until you get at least one lens out first (it helps to have a lot of prior experience with handling contact lenses to make it as hassle-free as possible). I can't really grade comfort properly though because these lenses were also a part of that box I forgot about, which means they had expired in their vials before I got around to do this review. I only wore these lenses for the duration it took to get all necessary photos and then I immediately discarded them regardless of how fine they felt to wear. Don't be reckless out there and please don't wear expired lenses or lenses that feel uncomfortable despite multiple cleansing attempts.

Another thing that I want to bring up is that when I removed both lenses it felt really weird to suddenly have full vision back after about 30 minutes of no vision. It was almost overwhelming in a way and I really mean that. I know it probably sounds a bit silly because I'm a sighted person all day every day normally and I only wore the lenses for a brief moment, but you'd be surprised how big of an impact those minutes of wear has on your psyche; like you suddenly have to go about your life in a completely different way than usual and you can't depend on the most crucial of all human senses to navigate. It puts you in a place of complete dependance on other senses to remain functional and that does things in your mind that are difficult to put into words, one of them being how quickly you adapt and kind of normalize it internally despite knowing that it's temporary, not permanent. It's quite an eye-opening experience (pun intended).
Oh and one little thing, immediately after removing the lenses I got this peculiar headache that stayed for a while and then just disappeared on its own after maybe an hour or two; I'm pretty confident it had something to do with the sudden return of sight and your body readjusting because I've had the same type of headaches before while wearing an eyepatch for a prolonged period of the day.

All in all blind lenses can be a great sfx addition to complete a costume but just make sure that you're aware of what you're getting yourself into before you take the leap. Do your research beforehand (like reading this review :3) and make sure you have a trusty friend at hand who's willing to help you navigate around, you'll need it. There are some characters out there from popular fiction works that would look really cool with blind white lenses to complete the costume – Toph Beifong from Avatar: the Last Airbender and Hinata and Neji Hyuga from the Naruto anime series immediately comes to mind. Of course blind lenses work great for other costuming ideas too like the ever-popular pirates and why not battle-damaged warriors and gladiators or creepier units like ghouls and the mythological Medusa etc. Point is that there's a lot of roleplaying and dress-up options where this kind of blind eye look or even partially blind look would really elevate a costume to its next level, even if you just wear one lens to keep yourself functioning without assistance. ;)

Distance photos!

(photo by Firith)

One-eye example look, pirate style!

Short summary:

Color: 10/10 

It's supposed to be an intense blind white and that's exactly what it delivers. Can't complain.

Design: 10/10 

It's hard to grade design because obviously it's a simple solid white and nothing else, but that's also exactly the only thing it's required and expected to be so it's perfect for what it is.

Opacity: 10/10

It's so opaque that you don't see anything, that's the point and for that full coverage is a must. This can't be anything but full points lol.

Enlargement: 1/10 

It's hardly enlarging, there might be a very tiny tiny increase but that's all.

Comfort: 8/10 

Without factoring in the blindness effect these lenses are a lot more comfortable than one might be inclined to think. I didn't feel them at all and they were surprisingly breathable and thin.

Naturalness: 3/10 

A bit hard to grade because real blind eyes can look quite different from case to case but usually they're not this strong and opaque of a white so yeah, I can't really claim that it's a very natural-looking blind look either but it's more believable than some colorful circle lens or other crazy-patterned lens.

Thanks for reading my blog, hope you found this interesting! If you have any further questions about these lenses you're welcome to leave a comment!

~ Shiro Samurai out.