How to Fog Proof Your Glasses
You’ve tried it, haven’t you? You stop for a traffic light and when you roll out into the intersection, you suddenly notice you can’t see! Your glasses are fogged up. Those few seconds without motion made the difference. Your own breath bounced off your clothing and somehow wafted up along your face to turn your nice, crisp lenses into an absolute blur.
So now you’re doing it – twitching your head to one side to let cool air flow in, scrunching up your nose, holding your breath, raising your eyebrows up and down like a lunatic – anything to clear out the fog so you don’t have to stop – or be stopped by something in your path.
In extremely cold weather – or in summer – fogged glasses are a non-issue. There’s not enough moisture in the air to cling to the lenses. What moisture there is either freezes or melts away.
But in simple, downright cold weather – and definitely in rain – it’s another story. Pause for a moment or tilt your head wrong and you’re like a plane flying in a cloud. Zero visibility. In this situation, slamming into something is definitely a higher probability.
So what are your options?
High-Tech
In the range of anti-fog tech on the market, some work better than others. Three of the best:
- Clarity Fog Eliminator. A dry system with a great reputation and a nice video stream.
- Bausch & Lomb Sight Savers Tissues. Reliable, but made for less intense conditions … like reading.
- RainX. Made for car windshields. Good for eye windshields too.
Home-Made
If you’d rather do it yourself or cheaply — or you just haven’t gotten around to buying the tech – try soap. Dish washing liquid, to be precise.
Put one drop on each lens, then let the tap water rinse over it. Dab them dry, but leave a glaze of soap to kill the fog. (Too much and the soap will warp your vision, too little and you’ll have the same problem you had before: fog.)
The tech version is more likely to last all day and it comes in convenient little packs. The home-made version is cheap and right next to the sink. After that, your solutions run to ski goggles with built-in mini-fans. But that’s where you’re on your own.