Anatomy of Eyeglasses: A Complete Guide
December 23, 2024 • 3:27 PM
Knowing how to find the best glasses for your face shape is important. Equally important to finding the perfect pair — but less discussed — is knowing the different parts of the glasses themselves.
By getting to know every part of the frame, you’ll empower yourself to ask better questions and make clearer requests of your optician.
1. Frames
The “frames” of your glasses refer to everything around the lenses. You’ll generally find acetate or metal frames, though plastic frames are possible too.
While you most likely have a sense of what kind of eyewear you like or think flatters you, every glasses wearer should be familiar with what goes into a frame.
Rims
The rims of your glasses encircle the lenses. Rims are one of the most defining features of a pair of glasses. They can be any shape. You can even find rimless or half-rim glasses. Semi-rimless and rimless frames are common in reading glasses, which are often designed to be smaller, lighter, and more portable.
Bridge
Are your glasses constantly slipping down your nose? Then this is where you really want to pay attention. The bridge supports the weight of your frame and connects the rims across the bridge of your nose.
Ensuring the bridge fits is super important, and sometimes, there’s not much you can do to adjust it — it’s part of the fundamental construction of your frame front. Whether a pair of glasses sits comfortably on your nose bridge is one of those small pieces that makes a big difference.
Some glasses have a top bar above the nose bridge. Picture a pair of aviator glasses, for instance. This feature is typically for style, but it can reinforce your frame and make glasses more durable.
Nose Pads
Nose pads are the tiny cushions that rest on either side of your nose, and they’re key for ensuring a comfortable, consistent fit. Metal frames almost always have nose pads, often made of silicone or soft plastic. The nose pads are attached to the rims by pad arms.
Acetate frames, however, often lack separate nose pads. The nose pads are typically built into the base in these cases.
End Pieces
End pieces are located in the upper corners of your frames. They tend to just out of the side of the frame a bit. This enables them to connect the hinges, which allow you to fold and store your glasses.
End pieces can be basic, or they can be decorated by rivets, a small logo, or even details like the sharp edge of a cat eye.
Arms
The hinges are connected by screws to the arms or temples of your glasses. The arms of your glasses are the other part of eyeglasses that are extremely important to the fit and comfort of your glasses. They can be adjusted in the store or by your optometrist, and it’s common for new glasses to need to be adjusted more than once for the perfect fit.
The ends of the temples or arms are called the temple tips. Temple tips can be made from a different type of material, especially on metal glasses, to ensure a comfortable fit.
2. Lenses
Lenses are the transparent panels you see through that sit within your frames. Choosing the right frames makes a huge difference to durability, personal style, and a comfortable fit. Choosing the right lenses is a little more complicated. Your lenses are largely determined by your prescription and therefore your optician.
That said, it can be helpful to understand the basics of the types of vision correction available with prescription glasses, as well as the available lens coatings and tints:
-
Single-vision lenses are the standard prescription lenses.
-
Multifocal, bifocal, or trifocal lenses are lenses that combine multiple prescriptions into the same lens. Bifocal lenses have two prescriptions, while trifocal lenses have three prescriptions. There’s generally a line or seam between each.
-
Progressive lenses are similar to bifocal or multifocal lenses, but with a gradual change in prescription across the lens rather than a clear dividing line.
-
Blue light glasses to help filter out potentially sleep-disrupting and eye-straining light from laptops and phones.
-
Transition lenses are great if you’re sensitive to sunlight. They darken for sun protection in reaction to light.
-
It’s also possible to glasses with specific coatings. There are scratch-resistant coatings, anti-reflective coatings, and even UV coatings to help reduce your exposure to the sun’s harmful rays.
If these features aren’t offered to you as standard, it’s worth asking —or shopping around for better glasses if your current provider can’t get what you need.
The Bottom Line
Understanding the parts of your glasses means you can better identify frame styles and materials. Knowing what to ask for helps with more than finding the eyeglass frame that suits your personal style. It can also be the difference between an uncomfortable fit or lenses that aren’t as good as they could be, and the glasses of your dreams.
The more you know, the clearer your perspective on what you need and want becomes. And that’s what glasses are all about, in the end: a clearer point of view.
Sources:
Learn the Nine Essential Parts of Eyeglasses | American Academy of Opthamology
Eyeglasses: How to Choose glasses for Vision Correction | American Academy of Ophthalmology