How polarised sunglasses work

12th July 2023

If your summer holiday plans mean spending time on or near to water it’s a good idea to have polarised lenses for your sunglasses. You might have wondered how polarised sunglasses work and what causes glare on water.

Polarised Light

Light is made of particles called photons, which travel through space like a wave, zig-zagging back and forth on their way to your eye. Natural, unpolarized light consists of photons bouncing in many directions at once. But as soon as they strike a surface like water, road or snow piste, these light waves begin vibrating in one direction, usually horizontally. This polarised light is what causes the intense glare that can hurt your eyes and over time mean eye strain leading to headaches.

How polarised sunglasses work

The filters applied to polarised sunglass lenses absorb the horizontally-vibrating waves which means only vertically-vibrating waves get through the filter and reach your eye. This greatly reduces the intensity of reflective glare. Glare also distorts the true colour of objects and makes them harder to distinguish – with polarised sunglasses you get glare-free vision, clear contrasts and more natural colours.

And the good news is you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a polarised sunglass – we have over 700 to choose from with prices starting at less than £10.