If you’re just getting started with readers – congratulations you have likely attained early middle age and with that comes wisdom and new challenges. Sticktite is here to help you stay in the game! The first thing is to make sure you have the right strength. Most people will start with 1.25 or 1.5 and slowly progress as they age to 3.0s. The easiest way to determine what strength you need is to pop into your local drug store or Walmart and try out some of the regular reading glasses they have there. Note what strength works best for you then come back to see us again at Sticktitelens.com Using bifocals for the first time can be a little disorientating – especially if you’ve never needed glasses before. You’ll find that you can see close up objects much better without straining – but when walking around there can be a somewhat disconcerting sense that the ground you’re walking on is out of focus. This is because in normal use the lower part of your field of view is now being seen through the reading lens. It’s worth experimenting with the placement of your Sticktite lenses to find the best position but don’t worry you WILL get used to it.

Firstly, check that you have the right strength. Compare them to your regular reading glasses, are they the same strength? If you mistakenly ordered the wrong strength we’ll gladly exchange them. Second, experiment with different positions for the lenses. The vast majority of problems customers experience with their Sticktite lenses are caused by faulty positioning. It really is worth investing a few minutes in getting it right. Third, your lenses may have got fingerprints on them on the side against your glasses. If this happens, cleaning them with solution while they’re installed on your glasses won’t work. Remove your Sticktite lenses with your fingernail and clean thoroughly with cleaning solution (or failing that warm water with small amount of detergent), pat dry with lens cloth or tissue and start again. Finally, you may have some large bubbles between the lenses and your glasses. A few small bubbles (less than the size of a pinhead) won’t make any significant difference but lots of bubbles or large bubbles will degrade performance. Press down on the lenses with a lens cloth and move them in a circular motion and gradually squeeze the bubbles out to the edges. Make sure your glasses are scrupulously clean before installing your Sticktite Lenses since any dust or grit on the “host” lenses will result in bubbles.

At Sticktite we recommend that you wet the lenses with cleaning solution before installation for best results. The main reason is that wetting the lenses allows you to easily reposition for several minutes so you’re likely to get a better alignment. That said, the lens polymer will adhere to your glasses even when both are dry. If you have no cleaning solution or clean water available you can go ahead and stick them on dry – but getting them in position will be more challenging. Sticktite lenses are not like postage stamps – they don’t need licking!

The answer to this one is “a bit”. A few small bubbles no larger than the head of a pin won’t affect optical performance to any significant extent, so don’t get let a few small bubbles get in the way of enjoying your Sticktite lenses. But larger and/or numerous bubbles will degrade the optics. It is worth investing a few minutes to get your lenses installed properly, in the right position and – almost – free of bubbles.

Yes! Once installed and dried out (which takes just a few minutes) your lenses will be stay on even under water, under the faucet, whatever. You can use them by the pool or in your scuba mask and they won’t float away. To be fair, you could probably get them to come off with an industrial pressure washer if you really tried, so as Steve Jobs once said, “don’t do that!”

Sticktite lenses adhere to glass and plastic through attraction at the molecular level. It’s a little like how the thin plastic film sometimes sticks to your fingers when you unwrap a cookie. There is no glue so no residue and what’s more they will stay on even underwater.

Yes! Despite being seemingly stuck to your glasses, the lenses can easily be peeled off using just your fingernail. There will be no gooey residue on your glasses or the lenses. And they will stick again and again to your other glasses. Of course, we’d recommend that once you’ve got them installed right, leave those ones in place and buy some more Sticktite lenses for your other glasses. We even offer discounts for multiple purchases.

It’s true, there are other adhesive reader lenses on the market. However we’ve found that Sticktite’s patented adhesion technology is superior in every way. Our lenses are thinner and more flexible so they stick to both flat and curved sunglasses, goggles, scuba maskse etc. We developed numerous prototypes to determine the optimal size of the lens. Finally, our lenses just stick better: once correctly applied they won’t wash off, blow off, rub off or just plain fall off.

Yes! Most near-sighted people will update their prescription to a varifocal design sometime in their early forties. In varifocals, the top portion of the lens is for seeing objects faraway, driving etc and the lower part of the lens is for seeing objects close to. So for example, the upper part of the lens might be minus 4.0 and the bottom minus 2.5. In Varifocals the transition between these two zones is gradual so there is no unsightly line dividing the top and bottom. Lenses with a sharp dividing line are called bifocals. When you first start to notice difficulty seeing close to objects you can apply Sticktites directly to your single focus prescription eyewear and convert them into bifocals. This works well but over time you will probably want to update your prescription. That said, for prescription sunglasses, Sticktites are a very cost effective way of converting them to bifocals without having to update the prescription and when used in sunglasses the Sticktite lenses are nearly invisible to anyone else.

Yes! If you wear contact lenses for near-sightedness you’ll find that as you age you’ll need to start using reading glasses. You can use bifocal contact lenses but these are expensive and don’t work for everyone. If you’re wearing contact lenses and sunglasses then you can use Sticktites to stay in the game just like anyone else.

You can find the data sheet for our lens cleaner here.