I received a complimentary pair of prescription eyeglasses from glassesshop.com, via Tomoson.com, in exchange for my honest review.
I've been wearing glasses since the 4th grade. I switched to contacts a year later, but I still wore my glasses at night or when I was sick. For the past two years, I've been nursing various illnesses and injuries, and I haven't worn my contacts in just as long. My glasses are over 5 years old, and I wear them everyday, so you can imagine how grungy and worn they are. So, when I saw the opportunity to receive and review a pair of eyeglasses, I jumped on it! I had neither shopped nor purchased glasses virtually before. I normally try-on and purchase my choice of frames from my optometrist and his brick-and-mortar office. So, new experience!
When I was chosen for the GlassesShop.com review, I was able to pick whatever style of glasses I wanted with whatever prescription I needed. Yay! I chose the Katherine purple blue stripe eyeglasses (SKU FZ0547). I have a heart-shaped face, with a fivehead and big eyes, high cheekbones, and a tiny chin. The website offers virtual try-on of frames, and the resulting image, as seen under "Customers' Tryon Pictures," is a poor, one-dimensional indicator of how the glasses would look on a real 3-D person. Again, I have no other experience with other online retailers of glasses frames, so this may be the case for all virtual try-on image engines.
After ordering my frames & lenses (for which the store required my prescription and pupil distance), it took approximately two weeks for them to be ready to ship. After shipping, it took approximately took two weeks to arrive from China. They arrived in a small box, perfectly sized for eyeglasses. Inside was a clear plastic case with the GlassesShop.com logo on it, along with a microfiber cleaning cloth. Neat!
Should've cleaned off the couch before the photo op.
Right out of the box (or case, in this instance), the glasses looked exactly as they did on the website. No surprises, there! Until I tried them on. Then...
#Nomakeup #Selfie
Hmmm...
The frames don't rest evenly on my face! It's hard to get a picture showing the skew, but one side is definitely higher than the other. I had a terrible thought: maybe after all these years my ears are uneven?? To test this, I had my mother try them on. (No photos, please. OK, Ma.) Here is my artistic rendering of her appearance:
I'm so sorry, Mom.
Nope, still uneven...Unless I inherited my possibly-uneven ears from her? To figure it out once and for all, I took out a right-angle ruler to see if I was crazy.
I'm really not crazy! There is the slightest, most miniscule difference between the two sides of the frames. Really.
I asked for assistance in correcting the skew, and I was told to use pliers to bend the frames to my liking. I worry about damaging or even breaking the plastic that covers the sides of frames. I expressed my concern but have yet the receive a satisfactory response as of the publication of this post.
After one week of wearing them 24/7, minus sleeping time and shower time, I'm negatively neutral about these glasses. Then again, I'm incredibly picky. Here we go!
PRODUCT POSITIVES:
- Accurate prescription: No headaches or blurriness.
- Durable: After one week of wearing, there are no chips in or discoloration of the frames.
- They work: They're glasses. I can see clearly now (the rain is gone...).
- Poor weight distribution: The weight of the frames rests on the nose. So, after 5 minutes of wearing, I had marks on the sides and bridge of my nose. This also leads to...
- Slippage: Since the weight is bore by the nose and not the ears, the frames move drastically when I move my head. When tilting my head down (like when spitting after brushing my teeth), the glasses slipped precariously off my face, barely hanging on by the ends of the arms.
- Pinching: There's a transition from plastic to metal on the arms of the frames. It's not an even surface, so it catches the little wispy hairs by my temples and pulls them out when the frames shift (which is often).
- Other: Not made in the USA
SERVICE POSITIVES
- Ease of website navigation
- Simple shopping
- Shipping time: About one week to confirm my order shipped, and about one week for the glasses to arrive.
Not sure if my order was treated differently because I am a non-paying customer.(I totally bungled the math on this! Here's a better breakdown of the time frame from my POV. I placed my order July 30 and received a tracking number on August 08. Glasses arrived August 16.) - Poor English language: The representative with whom I spoke via email did not write clearly. I wonder if he wrote in his native language and translated it to English with a program. (That being said, we understood each other very well. I'm not sure how well the word "skew" translates, so I don't know if the language barrier was preventing a resolution to my problem.)
I do not plan on returning the frames because I received them for free. However, should a customer wish to return his or her purchase, there is a return policy - but "shipping and handling costs will NOT be refunded. There is a 30% restocking fee for glasses." Ouch.
BOTTOM LINE: The glasses I chose cost about $60 for both the frames and the prescription lenses. This is a huge savings when compared to the frames available at my local optometrist's office, even with health insurance. Personally, I am a huge proponent of "try before you buy," so buying glasses online isn't really my speed. Nevertheless, it's a good bargain to pay only 20% of what you might spend at a professional's store.
Speaking of 20%, I have a coupon code for my readers to use! For 20% OFF site-wide at glassesshop.com, use the code "Katie20".
As of publication of this post, the frames I chose are on sale for $29.95. Use the coupon code above, and they cost less than $24!
Questions? Comments? Want more Paint portraits of my family? Let me know!
Edits from 09/05/2014 for clarification are in parentheses
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