Goggles

Why the need of goggles?

The one and only job of ski goggles is to protect eyes from outer elements. First of all, they need to properly fit on the face in order to keep the strong sun rays (also known as UV light) away possibly causing eye damage or in other words, snow blindness and with rising elevation in the mountains this risk is potentially higher, especially when skiing on glaciers for example. Other essential benefits of wearing goggles would prevent snow or rain coming in or enhance vision contrast during stormy days.

Various models, shapes and sizes

Nowadays a goggle world offers a great variety of shapes and designs to cover the spectrum of needs of skiers and snowboarders. Ultimately, a good fitting goggle will grant you a great field of peripheral vision and comfortable sealed fit around the nose and face. There’s, however one more thing to consider when picking the right ski goggles, and those are helmets. If you already are an owner of a ski helmet or you are planning on buying one, remember ski helmets and ski goggles often go hand in hand. So again, make sure, the fit around the nose and face is tight and comfortable and more importantly without a gap between the top of goggles and helmet. If there’s a too big of a gap, you might end up either with a brain freeze due to too much of an airflow or a super awkward sun tan on your forehead.

On the market, there’s currently few distinguishable fits and those are for men, women, children, over the glasses (OTG) and lastly an Asian fit.

Men’s goggles – this category covers the majority of standard sized adult goggles

Women’s goggles – built mainly for majority of women with smaller face than regular sized adult goggles. These goggles come with reduced volume over the nose bridge to avoid wind and snow coming in

Children’s goggles – smaller frame, usually sturdy and simplified to reduce the unnecessary costs down to minimum

O.T.G – goggles specifically built in mind for skiers and snowboarders who simply can’t ride without their prescription glasses on the slope. OTG goggles in general have deeper frame so your regular glasses are not being pushed on the face and then sides of the foam are being cut away to allow a glasses arms to fit under.

Asian fit – goggles in this category were designed for a specific face anatomy and it should accommodate people with lower nose bridge and higher cheekbones

Lens tins, shapes and conditions

Essentially, there are two basic types of goggle lenses. Cylindrical and spherical. The main noticeable difference between these two, is their shape. Cylindrical lens is ‘’flat’’, only curved along its vertical axis, which distorts the reflection and will deliver only reduced peripheral field of view. On other hand, spherical lens has more of a resemblance of the human eye i.e., it’s shaped along horizontal and vertical axis. The benefits of wearing goggles with spherical lens will deliver better optical clarity along with peripheral view and no distortion.

Spherical vs .cylidrical lenses

As there are different shapes and sizes of goggles and lenses, there also are tin lenses for variety of weather conditions. As was mentioned before, the conditions may vary from very bright and sunny to stormy and low light. Tins are rated from 0 to 4 – where zero is most suitable for low light conditions as opposed to category 4, which is dark and suitable for very bright days. The most versatile lenses are within category 2-3, which can accommodate most of the conditions out there. Now when you already know the difference between various UV light protections, you may also find another way of expressing this value, which is VLT, also known as visible light transmission. The VLT is presented in percentage and basically it features how much light particular lens is able to absorb and how much contrast there is in your surroundings. This figure falls anywhere between 0% to 100% (see the chart below). Therefore, this number can decide whether you can see anything on the mountain or not. Nowadays, brands with medium to premium goggle products usually come with two lenses to satisfy customer needs. One of them would be for bright conditions and second for low light, night conditions.

VLT	S	CONDITIONS	WEATHER
3-8%	S4	Very strong light	(Glacier) Blue Bird	☀☀
9-18%	S3	Strong light	Sunny, a little bit cloudy	☀⛅
19-43%	S2	Moderate light	Cloudy, changing conditions	⛅☁
44-80%	S1	Low light	Flat light, snowfall	☁❄
81-100%	S0	Very low light	Snowfall, artificial light	❄☾

Despite the fact, some goggles come with two lenses, the technology has evolved and there are lenses on the market which can accommodate UV altering throughout the day, from dark to light and vice versa (e.g., Oakley Prizm, Nike, Dragon).

Maintenance and care

• always use provided microfiber cloth when cleaning goggles lens. Other fabrics may be too rough and may contain microscopic dirt that could potentially scratch the lens
• If the lens is wet, gently dab without any movements, otherwise it could damage the anti-fog coating on the surface
• If goggles tend to fog up, either store them in your inner mesh pocket, or air them out on your helmet. However, don’t ever wear them on your beanie or directly on a forehead because they will fog up very quickly

Ventilation system

Read more regarding ski and snowboard goggles

• The ultimate guide to skiing and snowboard goggles