Tips on cleaning optical glass for long life

[RedTomato]

Hiya,

Thought I would post here as you guys have experience with high quality optical glass.

I wear expensive glasses (300-500 dollars just for the lenses) with good quality lenses - without them I'm almost legally blind. I depend on the clarity of my eyesight for all my work, and can detect any dust on my glasses.

I have to clean my glasses almost every couple of hours, as in this hot dusty city it only takes a few minutes for dust to start landing on my glasses.

I've already completely ruined one pair of glasses by cleaning them on my shirt / tissue paper - they're now covered in a haze of microscratches, so I need cleaning tips for my future glasses.

I currently use some 6x4 squares of cleaning fabric my optician gave me for free, but I have no idea of the 'expert' way to use it, how many days I can use one for, etc.

What are your tips?

A $1000 dollar cleaning solution would be too much, (but tell me about it if one exists). I could probably go for spending $100 -200 per year on keeping my glasses spotless.

I also have a bottle of iKlear style laptop LCD cleaning wipes and spray, but am a bit dubious about using them on my valuable glasses.

It's not just dust I have deal with, also things like flecks of paint, greasy fingerprints from my baby daughter etc.

Thanks for any advice

 

[Abstract]

I think that cleaning cloth is the best solution. I even use them to lightly wipe my camera lenses sometimes if they're dusty.

 

[RedTomato]

How many times do you use them before chucking them? Just the once?

 

[Oryan]

My eye doctor recommends using a generic lens cleaner / water mixture and a fine lens cloth. I haven't had any problems with it.

 

[Clix Pix]

When I bought my last pair of glasses, the optician sold me something called California Clear, which is specifically made for cleaning eyeglasses. I don't know if it would be available over in the UK, though. I squirt a little of this on each lens, then wipe the glasses with a very soft cloth -- works great! I also have from time to time used the wonderful RadTech lensavrz cloths that I use on my camera lenses as well as my iMac and laptop monitor screens.

 

[RedTomato]

Thanks Clixplix - I had a look at the RadTech Lensavrz site

http://www.radtech.us/Products/LensavRz.aspx

I might order some of these or whatever they have here in the UK. I didn't know they were washable - that's good to know.

Soz to repeat myself, but do you guys wash / discard your cloths after every time you use them?

I'm thinking about the muck on the cloth from the first time causing microscratches the second time you use it.

I clean my glasses every few hours compared to only cleaning my LCD screen and camera lens maybe once or twice a month, so the potentional for small scratches building up is much higher with my glasses. (That's how I ruined my first pair of expensive glasses

 

[Mike Teezie]

The thought of liquids getting near my lenses makes me all queasy.

I just use a generic eye glass lens cleaner.