When someone wears glasses, it tricks our brains into thinking that their face is slightly wider than what it is. This is because of where they place the lens on their eye visible. The type of lenses that are chosen may also influence the appearance of the size of their eyes.
Glasses can make your eyes look smaller. Glasses with a lower prescription are needed to improve nearsightedness. These eyeglasses shrink the size of your retina to assist with distance viewing. This might make your eyes appear smaller than they are.
While glasses with lower prescriptions may make your eyes appear smaller, the same can be said for magnification glasses making your eyes look bigger. In this article, we’ll discuss different prescriptions and how they can affect the overall appearance of your eyes.
How Do You Prevent Small Eyes with Glasses?
Glasses with a lower prescription are needed to improve nearsightedness. These eyeglasses shrink the size of your retina, which makes them appear much smaller. There are, however, ways to prevent this from happening.
To prevent your eyes from looking smaller with glasses, use a lightweight frame. Light frames with small lenses will allow the lenses to sit closer to your face, thus reducing the magnified appearance of your eyes and images through your glasses.
Lenses that are too heavy or sit too high on the face can cause your eyes to look smaller. In addition, thick lenses and black frames may also add a magnifying effect by making images appear larger through glasses.
This causes an optical illusion where everything will seem closer than it is. To prevent this from happening, do not wear eyeglasses with:
- Oversized lenses
- Dark frame colors
- Lenses thicker than two millimeters unless otherwise required
If the optical illusion occurs it will make your eyes appear small when looking at distant objects
Try Bifocals to Prevent Your Eyes from Looking Smaller with Glasses
If you plan on wearing glasses frequently, try progressive lenses or bifocals. Both lens types have smaller magnification areas at the bottom of the lenses, so your eyes don’t look as magnified as they would with regular eyeglasses.
Avoid wearing thick black wire-framed glasses if possible because they can amplify smaller looking eye sizes compared to thinner frame materials like metal or plastic, which reduces magnifying where eyes can look larger than they are.
In general, it’s a good idea to avoid wearing oversized glasses with lenses that curve and bend inwards towards the very middle of your face. If you’re having difficulty finding frames that suit your coloring or facial features, consider contacting an optometrist about options such as contacts instead.
Can Glasses Make My Eyes Look Bigger?
Nearsightedness may require magnification glasses to see things further away. An optometrist can provide advice on what type of eyeglasses would suit best for your needs in terms of vision angle and shapes/styles of lenses available in-store inventory.
Glasses can make the eyes look bigger in certain circumstances, mainly when there is a strong prescription for eyeglass wearers with high farsightedness and/or astigmatism requiring magnification lenses.
When glasses magnify what you see through them, it may cause an optical illusion making the eye appear larger than usual.
How to Avoid Eyes Looking Larger with Glasses
Avoid wearing glasses with thick, black frames. Choose thin wire frames instead, to minimize the eye enlarging effect of magnification lenses.
Another option is to choose rimless or semi-rimless eyeglasses that amplify your eyes less than framed styles do. For example, metal and plastic materials are lightweight options that don’t add bulkiness around the face area. Heavier frames can magnify how small your eyes look under certain circumstances compared to standard glasses.
Choose Flat Lenses to Prevent Your Eyes from Looking Larger
To avoid your eyes looking larger with glasses, try selecting glasses with lenses that are either flat or have a very subtle curve. Depending on your prescription, this can help reduce the amount of magnification as your eyes will look smaller and less magnified.
Flatter lenses tend to be more lightweight and less bulky than their bolder, squared counterparts. If you want a pair of glasses with slightly rounded lenses, consider purchasing rimless glasses or frameless designs that eliminate the frame area completely around your eyes.
Conclusion
Glasses can make your eyes look smaller. If you’re worried about the size of your eyes, it may not be a good idea to wear glasses with a lower prescription. This is because they shrink the size of your retina to assist with distance viewing, which might make them appear smaller than they are.
However, if you have farsightedness and need corrective lenses for long-distance viewing or reading, then low-prescription eyeglasses will correct that problem nicely while still making sure other parts of your eye stay healthy too!
