Polarized Sunglasses

Also spelt polarised, polarized lenses are worn to reduce glare and enhance visibility in almost any weather conditions. Polarized lenses are the only lenses that enable visibility below the surface of water in marine environments. This can be very helpful for any water sports or fishing enthusiast.

Polarized lenses work on a rather simple principle, that reflection from water or other flat surfaces is polarized horizontally. The way that polarized lenses work is by having vertically oriented polarizers which block horizontally polarized light. This therefore means that a large amount of glare is removed yet the lenses themselves still allow enough light through to not hinder vision.

Many sportsmen wear polarized sunglasses to aid sight when subjected to a large amount of glare. However, there are situations when polarized lenses are not always advisable for glare reduction. When on the snow, it is best not to have polarized lenses, as although there tends to be a lot of glare on clear days, patches of ice will not be visible as polarized lenses make ice seemingly disappear.

However, Bollé have overcome this with their ski and snowboarding lenses which are not polarized and allow the wearer to distinguish between ice and snow, yet reduce overall glare whilst on the slopes.

Bearing this in mind, it cannot be disputed that polarized lenses play an important role to many sunglasses wearers and in some situations polarized lenses may actually play a vital role.