In the market for a great pair of safety glasses that won’t break the bank (or break across your face if you get hit with flying debris)?
We hear you loud and clear. The personal protective equipment industry has definitely had its time in the spotlight for the past few years, and that’s good and bad.
Here’s the bad news: lazy mass production. As the demand for more safety glasses rises, some manufacturers will just release anything because you have no choice but to purchase them, or do you?
Now that the bad news is out of the way, here’s the good news: The good side of the increased need for PPE means you’ve got more options than the cheap glasses at the big box store. In fact, safety glasses are far from the uncomfortable plastic pieces you remember from high school biology lab.
At Stoggles, we take pride in offering protective eyewear that surpasses your expectations for protection and style. Together, we’ll discuss why safety glasses are so important and what eye injuries they protect you from. We’ll also compare our Stoggles to popular safety glasses and highlight the differences between them and our hybrid protective eyewear.
Why Are Safety Glasses Important?
Safety glasses are for everyone. Read that again. That’s right. Not just construction workers, miners, welders, or orthopedic surgeons twisting limbs back together.
Even people who work a 9-5 and sit behind a computer screen all day are susceptible to eye injuries. Honestly, if you’ve ever pushed down too hard on a mechanical pencil and had the lead fly at you, you get it. You see your life (and the lead) flash before your eyes.
Protective safety eyewear is important whether you are taking care of business at home, on the job, or enjoying your favorite pastime.
At Work
Your workplace is the location of about half of all eye-related injuries. On the job, more than 2,000 workers each day suffer from an eye injury, and about one-quarter of those injuries result in trips to the emergency room and time off from work.
OSHA regulates the need and standards for safety glasses in the workplace. As such, your employer has likely made you aware of potential eye risks and possibly even supplied you with protective eyewear. If you’d rather do the shopping on your own for a pair that better fits your face and your style, read on.
At Home
The other half of all eye-related injuries happen at home, probably because, unlike your job, there’s no governing agency to blow a whistle if you aren’t wearing safety glasses around an obvious eye hazard.
Another reason eye injuries are so common at home? We don’t account for the risk. Cleaning with chemicals, using power tools to get the lawn in shape, or tackling a small home repair project all seem commonplace to us. As such, we’re less likely to wear safety glasses.
Eye injuries at home present a greater risk to your vision. At your job, there may be emergency kits to help administer first aid for an eye-related injury. At home, you may not have those resources. No matter how much HGTV we watch, none of us are invincible from accidents.
Your Favorite Pastimes
Racquetball, baseball, automotive repair, or any other hobby that involves flying balls or debris presents a risk to your eye safety. We understand the temptation to avoid safety glasses while you’re on the field-no one wants to catch snarky comments from their teammates. However, we’d argue your vision is more important than any flack you catch from your friends.
Thankfully, Stoggles makes it easy to avoid annoying comments and eye hazards. Our hybrid eyewear is designed to keep you safe and stylish at the same time.
What Are the Most Common Risks to Our Vision?
Just like you wear the proper clothes for the proper task (i.e., a helmet for riding a bike, elbow and knee pads for skateboarding), you’ll wear the right kind of safety eyewear for the specific eye hazard to which you are exposed.
Here are the four most common types of eye hazards you encounter both at work and at home:
1. Splashes, Spills, and Splatters
You never see it coming (pun intended), but anytime you’re working with chemicals, cleaning products, or bodily fluid, there is always a risk of the solution ending up in your eyes. Healthcare workers are especially vulnerable to these types of injuries.
Nurses are at the highest risk of receiving an eye injury from coming in contact with bodily fluid. Of the contact nurses have with bodily fluid, 83% come in contact with their faces, and 66% enter their eyes. Not only does this affect vision, but bloodborne pathogens are also transferred, which can affect total health.
Safety glasses protect your eyes from spills, splashes, and splatters. Unlike regular glasses that leave your eyes vulnerable at the top near your eyebrows and on the sides near your temples, safety glasses have side and top shields that meet your skin, giving you 360-degree protection against fluid infiltration.
Feeling yucky? Us too. Grab that hand sanitizer, and let’s power through the rest of this article.
2. Strikes and Scrapes
Most people think of debris hitting their eyes when they think of eye-related injuries. Debris strikes are common both at home and on the job. To understand the full impact of a debris strike, it’s vital to understand a bit more about how the eye works.
The part of the eye that allows you to see is called the retina. The retinal cells located in the retina don’t regenerate, which means that vision loss is often permanent.
The retina is located behind the cornea, pupil, iris, lens, and the soft, gelatinous material of the eye called the vitreous. These structures are soft and don’t offer much protection to your delicate retinal cells.
When debris strikes or scrapes your eye, your cornea is usually the injured party. However, if the strike delivers enough impact, it is entirely possible for your retina to become damaged and for vision loss to occur.
Safety glasses prevent debris strikes if the glasses are made from durable material. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure that the safety glasses you choose are ANSI Z87.1-2020 certified. This certification means your glasses have undergone two important tests:
- High mass impact test. In this test, a weighted ball bearing is dropped on the glasses. If the glasses shatter or break, they don’t pass (and there’s no consolation prize).
- High-velocity impact test. For this test, a ball bearing is fired at the safety glasses at high speed, and the glasses cannot shatter or break.
The ANSI seal is always visible on the frame or lens of the glasses and lets you know your glasses meet the industry safety standards for impact resistance.
3. Burns
Remember that time you went skiing without sunglasses? Your eyes burned and watered for a few days after your shred fest. As you burned up those epic turns on the slopes, you likely developed a corneal burn (not epic). Just like the skin burns in the sun, your cornea can burn, too.
Ultraviolet rays reflected on snow, water, or sand can harm your eyes, just like being in direct sunlight. UV protection is vital in every pair of safety glasses, even if you don’t think you’ll be exposed to UV rays for more than a few seconds. It’s better to be protected in the off-chance you might come in contact with these light rays than to end up with eye damage.
4. Blue Light
Similar to UV rays, blue light is also emitted from the sun and has the ability to penetrate your eyes and reach your retinas. Blue light comes from numerous other sources than the sun. Natural blue light is responsible for a healthy circadian rhythm. Artificial blue light is responsible for disrupting a healthy circadian rhythm,
Blue light sources include your computer, LED televisions and lightbulbs, smartphones, and tablets. Most of us are exposed to high amounts of blue light simply from the amount of technology we use in our daily lives.
Blue light exposure can lead to eye strain, fatigue, blurry vision, itchy, watery eyes, and even headaches. Over time, blue light can lead to computer vision syndrome, or CVS, a condition thought to be caused by daily exposure to blue light from computer screens and tablets.
For all the risks your eyes are exposed to, it’s important to find safety eyewear that protects you from all the risks all the time while still being comfortable and wearable.
MSA Safety Glasses vs. Stoggles
You need protection in eyewear that actually feels good on your face and looks respectable whether you’re cleaning your toilets or taking care of a patient at work. The problem remains: Where do we look for the best eyewear?
Call us biased, but we definitely have the solution. Stoggles offers the advantage of being hybrid eyewear. A cross between safety glasses and incredibly stylish frames, other brands simply can’t compete.
Safety
The most important part of shopping for safety eyewear is ensuring your glasses meet industry standards for safety. All Stoggles are ANSI Z87.1-2020 certified, impact-resistant, and crafted from virtually indestructible polycarbonate material.
We don’t skimp on safety, we deliver, and we tuck in a few extra bells and whistles, too. Every pair of Stoggles has blue light blocking technology and is naturally UV blocking because they’re made with polycarbonate material. We also treat each pair of Stoggles with an anti-fogging solution so that you never have to worry about removing your glasses to wipe them off.
Supreme Style
Other safety glasses… look like safety glasses. Let’s face it, in terms of style, safety glasses aren’t exactly the height of fashion.
That’s why Stoggles are different. Our eyewear doesn’t look like a standard pair of safety glasses because they aren’t a standard pair of safety glasses.
Our frames are available in several different shapes (even trendy cat eye frames), so you don’t have to settle for the mad scientist look. We also offer numerous color options, so you can match your glasses to your eye color, hair color, or even your mood.
Most importantly, our glasses are outrageously comfortable. The lightweight polycarbonate frames are made with a sleek and stylish design that fits your face and head effortlessly and elegantly. The side and top shield designs are streamlined to keep them low profile.
One Manufacturer To Oversee Them All
When you shop with other brands, you’ll find they operate as retailers selling safety glasses made by random, third-party companies.
At Stoggles, we only offer, well, Stoggles. We control the materials, the specs, and all aspects of our eyewear to ensure you get a quality product every time you shop with us. We’re a party of one, and dang proud of it.
Stoggles: Quality and Style Every Time
You can get a pair of safety glasses virtually anywhere, but if you want eyewear that protects your eyes and is worthy of gracing your face, Stoggles is the answer. Our eyewear gives you ultimate protection, incredible style, and extreme comfort. We think you’ll agree; there’s simply no comparison.
Sources:
Eye Safety at Home: Preventing Eye Injuries | American Academy of Ophthalmology