Articles | Slipping Glasses on Oily Nose. Here's how to stop the slip.

Summer, sunshine and an oily nose. The perfect combination to get your glasses sliding down on your nose much like a skier on an alpine slope. While gravity is ever present to pull down your glasses, there are ways to keep your glasses right where it should be. The usual method will be to tighten the glasses temple and adjust the nose-pad. Since most glasses temple are made of hard plastics, it does not offer much friction to hold your glasses in place. Bending the temple inwards and downwards will help until it starts to hurt your head or ears. If your glasses have an adjustable nose-pad, your optician will be able to bring them closer so that it grips better on your nose. For glasses with built-in nose-pad, there are silicone nose-pads that can be stuck onto the glasses nose-pad. This will also help grip onto your nose. Unfortunately, these nose-pads tend to fall off after a while especially the cheap variety.

If all adjustments of the glasses does not help, there are other accessories. Technically, when looking down, it is the temple of the glasses that is supporting it with minimum support coming from the nose-pad. Therefore, it is more important to have a better grip at the temple than at the nose. The least obvious accessories to provide more grip at the temple would be Nerdwax and friction sleeves. Nerdwax is a wax meant for application on the nose pad and temple area to increase friction. Friction sleeve is a high friction silicone tube that fit over the glasses temple. If you perspire much or if there is much facial oil around the nose, more frequent application of Nerdwax may be needed.

Friction Sleeve

FOCUS glasses temple earhook

When Nerdwax and Friction Sleeve is still unable to hold your glasses, the next option is glasses temple earhooks. These provide mechanical support by having a tail down the back of your ear. As the back of your ears are sensitive to pressure, most users have to adjust the earhooks along the temple till it provide just the right amount of force and does not hurt the ears. Fortunately, new temple earhooks design like Flex Discreet and FOCUS earhooks are designed to be gentle to the back of your ears. These earhooks require less precise adjustment to support your glasses without discomfort.

Demonstration of FOCUS temple earhooks stopping glasses from slipping on simulated oily nose.

There also hacks that are supposed to help stop glasses from slipping. This includes application of foundation at the nose area, tying hair bands on temple tip and using heat shrink tube. While these hacks may work if you just require short term or one off solution to stop your glasses from slipping, they are may be more expensive, uncomfortable or inconvenient over longer term or duration.

Cable temple glasses with its curved loop at the end of the temple.

Moving beyond accessories to stop slipping glasses, the next option is to use glasses that are designed to be non-slip. Conventional cable temple glasses with its temple tip curling down to the earlobe offers good mechanical support. However these may squeeze your ears if the fit is not exact. Although the ear is made of soft cartilage, prolong excessive pressure will cause soreness.

Beta-Simplicity Eyewear frames come with a anchor tip design which offers excellent support and comfort. Unlike most frames temple tips, the anchor tip is made of ultra-soft elastomer. The engineered anchor tip comes with a cushioning system to reduce the pressure behind the ears while providing much needed mechanical support. The metal core within the soft covering is very responsive to bending for accurate contouring to fit your head profile. This is unlike most other frame temple which are either full plastic or have a hard plastic temple tip which makes it difficult to bend.

Beta-Simplicity Eyewear frames featuring an unique anchor tip design. Visit page .

Jonathan
30 January 2018
Updated 08 September 2019

 

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