How long can you safely wear coloured contact lenses for?

Coloured contact lenses can be worn safely for up to 8 consecutive hours. However, they shouldn’t be worn overnight. Instead, the lenses should be removed and stowed away in a solution-filled, air-tight container.

Advice on staying safe while wearing colour contact lenses

It’s important to take all reasonable precautions to safeguard your eyes when wearing coloured lenses. To help you out, here’s a list of the most important do’s and don’ts:

Do’s:

1. Do sterilize coloured contact lenses before use. To avoid infection and damage to the eye, soak your lenses in sterile solution before and after use. We recommend Eye Fusion Multipurpose Contact Lens Solution for this.

2. Do stop wearing them if you experience irritation. If the lenses irritate the eye, feel uncomfortable or cause redness, you should remove them immediately and consult an eye doctor or optometrist for advice on future use.

Don’ts:

1. Don’t share your lenses with anyone else. Doing so will substantially increase the chances of you contracting a bacterial infection, which in the most severe cases can cause irreversible damage.

2. Don’t wear multiple lenses in one eye. People often assume that they can wear coloured contact lenses over the top of clear prescription lenses. However, this shouldn’t be done under any circumstances. Wearing multiple pairs of lenses at once is likely to cause irritation at best. Meanwhile, the more severe consequences can be a scratch to the cornea and even blindness.

3. Don’t wear coloured contacts if you have a pre-existing eye infection or have recently had eye surgery. If you’ve recently had an eye infection, injury or have undergone eye surgery, you should refrain from wearing colour contacts until you’ve consulted an optometrist or eye doctor for advice.

4. Don’t wear ripped or damaged coloured contact lenses. Wearing a ripped or damaged contact lens can be extremely dangerous as it can lead to fragments breaking off and becoming lodged in the eye. It’s therefore important to handle your coloured contact lenses with extreme care, avoiding contact with sharp objects such as fingernails.