Like a man wearing a suit in a blizzard or a woman wearing a dress to the pool, blue lenses are the nicest looking lenses to wear that are nearly always the least useful in any situation. Here’s why.
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How Do Blue Lenses Work?
The blue lens is one of the only lenses that uses a distinct color actually on the light spectrum. Grey, brown, and rose are not on the light spectrum as visible colors (Our eyes can only see blue, green, and red). Green is often used, reviewed here, and red is sometimes used as lenses but is not particularly useful.
The visible light spectrum is made up of wavelengths of energy that correspond to different colors interpreted by our eyes. The highest energy and shortest wavelengths are the blue light spectrum. Green light is less energy and longer wavelengths, and red light are the lowest energy and longest wavelengths. This means that blue light moves faster and more frequently than green or blue light.
Because of this, blue light is more prevalent in our view. It’s why the sky is blue, because blue light is scattered more than green or blue by particles in the atmosphere, called Rayleigh scattering.
The human eye contains three types of cone photoreceptors, each sensitive to different parts of the light spectrum: short (blue), medium (green), and long (red) wavelengths. The cones that detect blue light are less numerous and less sensitive compared to those that detect green and red light. Because of this, our eyes are less adept at processing and distinguishing fine details in blue light, leading to lower contrast.
Blue light doesn’t contrast well with many other colors in our environment. For example, blue doesn’t create as strong a distinction when placed next to black, white, or gray, compared to red or yellow. This poor contrast makes it more challenging for our visual system to detect edges and details in an image.
We don’t even realize how blue everything we see outdoors is. It dulls the other colors because of its higher energy and the world becomes less colorful and washed out as a result. Conversely, removing blue or adding red will add a lot of color that was being throttled by the blue light. That’s why putting on brown lenses, which are a mix of green and red light and reduce blue the most, can feel like adding a fresh coat of paint to the world.
The way a lens tint will work follows these principles:
The color of the base lens tint will let more of the same color light through relative to other colors. A green lens lets more green light in, and a rose lens lets in more red and blue (what combine to make rose).
The color opposite the lens color on the color wheel (the complementary color) will generally be the least transmitted and most muted. A green lens will most block purple (a mix of blue and red), a rose lens will block green, etc.
Letting relatively more light of a color through the lens brightens that color relative to other colors. Letting less of that light in relative to other colors will make other colors brighter relative to that color.
Generally speaking, if you want more contrast (difference in colors) you will use a lens that blocks the most prevalent color and boosts the other colors. If you want less contrast you will use the lens that is the same as the dominant color in your environment. For example, if you want more contrast on a green golf course, you would use a rose lens. If you want more contrast in a red desert, you might use a green lens.
Blue lenses transmit blue light relatively more than green or red light. This makes colors appear cooler and more subdued because they reduce the intensity of warm colors like red and yellow. Objects may appear with a bluish tint. It will make blues and some greens more distinct.
To be clear, blue lenses can still be fully protective, both from UV rays and even from HEV blue light. We are talking now about the effect of the blue lens on the view.
Let's see what blue lenses look like.
How Blue Lenses Change the View
Sunny Conditions
Let's choose a situation that has somewhat favorable conditions for blue lenses, due to the blue water and blue sky that will look nicer with blue boosted. But notice the buildings which are shades of red, orange, and yellow, and how washed out and dull they are in the next picture.
I find the blue lens a strange mix of calming, as it reduces the bright colors of red and green, but also brighter, with the higher energy blue light dominating the view. To me, it is a bit disorienting. Is the blue lens better than nothing? Yes. It reduces the total light and the view is more comfortable than without anything on, and it protects from UV rays. But it's an odd choice when a simple grey lens will look like this:
The colors are pleasant, comfortable, and natural. The only aspect that is not as good is the sky, which is only slightly less royal blue and the difference is barely noticeable. To bring home the point, let's use a brown lens now, as it is the closest thing we have to the opposite of blue (because that shade of red is near the complementary color on the color wheel). The brown lens is much more pleasant, the colors are brighter, clearer, and more contrasted. The only slight drawback is the sky, which gets a slight tinge of red to it, but that is barely noticeable and most people prefer it.
Cloudy Conditions
In cloudy conditions, the effect of blue lenses is even worse. Since clouds cause light to be diffused, contrast is reduced significantly. Normally, we would want to boost contrast in that situation, but blue lenses do not.
Again, the blue lens reduces light, and that is a benefit. But the view is colder, washed out, dull, and pretty sad. I don't generally recommend grey lenses for overcast conditions, as they are better in full sun, but I think they are a solid step-up on blue lenses here.
Here, where we want to add contrast, a brown (or rose) lens would be much better.
When are Blue Lenses Recommended?
We've seen how blue lenses are generally the worst lens choice, but are there times when blue lenses outshine others?
Yes. When we want to reduce color and contrast. This can be a location or a mood determination. Sometimes a place is so bright and colorful, and on the red hue side, that blue lenses help calm things down. A desert for example.
The blue lens here is a bit nicer than the grey, and a brown would be offputting with the red and distorting the blue sky. But the difference is not that big, and most people do not need dedicated desert sunglasses if grey or green lenses would work also well here. Many people will still prefer brown, green, or grey for the better contrast the provide.
Sometimes people prefer blue lenses because they feel like everything is too hot and exciting - even when most people wouldn't feel that way - and they want a calming, cooler sensation. That's a subjective decision.
The other time blue lenses can be helpful is indoors. This only works for Category 1 and 2 lenses, as Category 3 lenses are too dark to wear indoors. The reason blue lenses are better indoors is that the lighting is often warmer in tone than outdoors, making blue lenses the correct hue to counteract that. They are also the nicest lenses to wear aesthetically, which is why many celebrities wear them and why many fashion-oriented brands have blue lenses. Performance brands, on the other hand, rarely have blue lenses in their lineup.
For example, Ray-Ban, Tom Ford, Persol, Moscot, and Cartier will have a lot of blue lenses in their frames. Oakley, Maui Jim, Costa Del Mar, and Revo have none.
Vuarnet is a rare exception with its blue polar lens.
I would only suggest buying blue lenses for fashion.
Conclusion - How Blue Sunglass Lenses Work
While blue lenses may be stylish and offer a cool, modern aesthetic, their performance often falls short compared to other lens colors. Their inability to boost contrast, especially in cloudy or low-light conditions, makes them a suboptimal choice for most outdoor activities. By allowing blue light to pass through while muting warmer colors, they create a view that is often dull, washed out, and lacking in vibrancy. However, blue lenses do have niche applications, such as creating a calming visual experience in high-energy, colorful environments like deserts or providing a subtle, fashion-forward look indoors. If visual performance and color enhancement are your priority, brown, rose, green, or grey lenses will typically offer a superior experience. Blue lenses may look great on the outside, but as this analysis shows, beauty doesn’t always translate to better performance.
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