How do you clean your glasses?

sbv@sh.itjust.works to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 123 points –

Lens manufacturers say that anything other than a microfiber cloth will damage the coatings on a lens. But microfiber cloths eventually pick up crap and they look like they're a pain to wash.

How do you keep your lenses clean? Are you using cloth/kleenex or microfiber cloths? If you use microfiber cloths, how do you clean those?

105

You are viewing a single comment

I generally use a similar method to this to deep clean my glasses, but I often don't want to do that deep of a clean all the time since my glasses get dirty fast. I find the Zeiss glasses wipes work well for me, but there is a lot of waste involved. Oddly enough, their cleaning spray works terribly for me, and it seems to just spread grease around the lenses...

I was looking at the ingredients for each, and it seems that Zeiss used different ingredients for the two products. The wipes contain water, isopropyl alcohol, and "proprietary detergents and preservatives". The cleaning spray contains water, butyl diglycol, and two other ingredients that to my knowledge are just preservatives. I think that in theory I could make a better cleaning spray by getting the right concentration of isopropyl alcohol and distilled water, mimicking the concentration in the wipes. What do you think is the highest percentage of isopropyl alcohol that I could safely use on glasses without damaging coatings?

Unfortunately I cannot answer that question. Opticians don't use alcohol to clean glasses, they often use white spirit to clean lenses. Alcohol can potentially damage your frame (if it's a 'plastic' one).

What do you use to wipe away the cleaning spray? Microfiber cloths don't absorb so we'll, so you'll usually get a better result using something cotton

When I tried to use it, I sprayed the Zeiss spray onto a Zeiss supplied microfiber cloth (was part of a kit I got from an optometrist), wipe the glasses, then use a dry part of the microfiber cloth to wipe it away. I don't think a more absorbent cloth would help much since it's a greasy residue. Plus, other sources tell me that I shouldn't use anything other than microfiber to clean my glasses. The spray just seems like a poorly formulated product that can't cut through grease like dish soap or the Zeiss disposable wipes.

We also give out sprays and microfiber cloths, and I always tell people to use them apart. Just because both says Zeiss doesn't mean they're to be used together

I should have clarified that they were both part of the same kit, with no other cloths provided.

Also, what I do is pretty much the same as what Zeiss says to do in their instructions, see this video link (couldn't find written instructions on their site): https://www.zeiss.com/vision-care/us/need-new-eyeglasses/eyeglass-cleaning-solutions.html#overlay-benefits-832427451

Lastly, what do you mean by using the spray and cloth apart? Do you mean using the cloth dry? Because that is even greasier than using the spray+cloth.