What Lens Type Is Best For Skiers & Snowboarders?

Many people don't know this but Panoptx eyewear originally was created as a ski goggle alternative. It wasn't until a few years later we realized that the eyewear is perfect for motorcycle riders and became the very first and Original Windless eyewear.

Since every single 7eye by Panoptx glasses are custom built in Ontario, California, we have a plethora of lens options for customers to choose from. So what lens is best recommended for skiers?

First let's talk about what not to use. Most photochromic light-adjusting lenses from any company are not ideal for skiing. Photochromic lenses acts like a conundrum in that when the weather gets too hot such as mid-90s or above, the lens actually gets lighter and not darker. When the weather gets too cold such as 40 degrees or below, the lens gets darker. You would think the lens should be at its darkest when the sun is stronger, but it doesn't work that way. Thus, when it comes time to ski, some of the photochromic lenses might get dangerously dark and impede visibility.

Polarized lenses are recommended and used by some skiers and discouraged by others. The benefit to having polarized lenses is that normally when you ski in the mountains, the sun is particularly strong at higher altitudes and that its UV light can bounce off or reflect back from snow, making it extra bright to your eyes. Polarized lenses can cut the extra glare from the snow. However, some skiers do not like polarized lenses because skiers tend to look at the slopes of the snow ahead of them, but polarized lenses can significantly cut the glare off of the snow and therefore making it harder to see what's ahead.

Lastly, even if you were to choose regular non-photochromic and non-polarized lenses, you can choose the lens tint to help contrast the environment. Gray is always the all-natural tint color to choose as it doesn't distort colors but just dims all the colors and lights down. Copper is recommended by many skiers because it heights and contrasts the colors better though visually our eyes may play a trick in our mind thinking gray is the darker color even though sometimes a copper lens can be just as dark as a gray lens.