How to Care for Your Vintage Sunglasses

For many people, sunglasses are an adventure accessory that goes along for everything from car trips and farmers’ markets to vacations and days on the lake. This can bring your sunglasses in contact with some potentially risky conditions, especially when you are sporting vintage sunglasses. These tend to be more fragile due to age and construction, as well as harder to replace.

The right care techniques can keep your vintage sunglasses in good condition, and all that is necessary is some changes to the way you wear and store your sunglasses to avoid damage to vintage frames and keep them looking and working well for decades.

Vintage Sunglasses Care

Where you wear your vintage sunglasses is up to you, but given the more delicate nature of frames, especially antique ones, many people will forgo wearing them in high activity situations where a modern day pair of sport sunglasses might work better. 

Instead, vintage sunglasses really stand out as fashionable sunglasses that can help keep the sun out of your eyes while driving, commuting, walking, beach going, and other day to day activities as long as you follow the following care steps:

• Don’t Use Your Shirt to Clean the Lenses – This goes for any other items you have on hand that are not explicitly for cleaning glasses, such as towels, napkins, and scarves. These items can have rough fibers and when you drag them across the lens’ surface, you will get permanent scratches. Reserve cleaning until you can clean your glasses with lens cleaner and a microfiber cloth.
• Don’t Set Your Glasses Lens-Side Down – When you set your glasses down on the lenses, they are at risk of scratching against whatever debris may be on the surface. The stems of your sunglasses are much harder to scratch from simply sitting down on a surface. 
• Don’t Hook Your Glasses Over Your Shirt – Hooking your glasses over the neck of your shirt makes sense at the moment, but when you bend over and they fall out, the impact can cause older cellulose acetate sunglasses to crack.
• Don’t Put Glasses on the Top of Your Head – Your head is wider than your temples and will stretch your glasses out, stressing the joints. You are also at risk of your glasses slipping off or falling.
• Store Your Glasses in a Case – Before you put your vintage sunglasses in a bag or purse, put them in their case first. Jostling around with other items in your bag can scratch the lenses and the rims or put too much pressure on the frames.
• Avoid Hot Cars – When you park your car outside in the summer, the temperature can easily reach well over 100. Cellulose acetate in vintage glasses is relatively durable, but it is a good idea to bring your glasses with you to avoid any unnecessary temperature stress on the plastic. 

An important part of vintage glasses care is to always keep a case with you wherever you go for sunglass storage. Since many vintage glasses no longer have their original cases, consider investing in a new case for each pair of glasses. This also gives you the option to buy one that fits your glasses and will keep them secure wherever you usually store them.

Eyeglasses Warehouse has a range of vintage sunglasses, offering all of the most popular frame styles from the 1900s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and more. Each pair is in good wearable condition and ready to have new tinted lenses added so you can wear them over the following years, giving you a pair of glasses that will last for decades when you care for them correctly. See all the glasses we have available today.