For the person who loves outdoor sports and adventure, polarized sunglasses serve as his best companion to protect his eyes from discomforts caused by the sun’s glare. These sunglasses are also useful indoors especially for individuals who love to spend long hours in front of the computer. The polarized lenses can reduce the glare from anything bright so you can see better, making them ideal for golfing, fishing, surfing, boating, and driving. But before you buy and wear one, make sure that you perform a polarized sunglasses test.
It’s all in the tag
The polarized sunglasses test lets you determine if sunglasses indeed have polarized lenses. If you are browsing through polarized sunglasses in an optical store, look for those that have a test sticker or a tag that helps you identify how polarized the lenses are. To start, look at the tag or sticker through the lens while rotating it to a 90-degree angle. At this point, the tag should become darker, which indicates the the lenses are really polarized.
What happens if there are no tags or stickers?
Just in case the sunglasses have no stickers or tags on them, you can still perform a polarized sunglasses test. All you need to do is to get another polarized pair of sunglasses, put them together with your first pair, and look through both while rotating one of them to 90 degrees. Light will be blocked if both pairs are polarized.
Another way to test your polarized sunglasses is by finding a flat-surfaced object that can easily reflect light (i.e. a glass countertop or windshield). Hold the pair of sunglasses a few inches away from your face and view the object from a lens. At this point, the light or the glare should be significantly reduced. Then, rotate the sunglasses to 90 degrees and the polarizing filter should allow more light to pass through it so the reflections are more visible. Non-polarized ones do not have any difference on the amount of reflections from the object when you rotate the lenses.