How to clean glasses
How to properly clean eyeglasses, sunglasses, or professional camera filters.
Hello and welcome to the TranslatorsCafe.com channel! In this video, I'll show you how to clean your eyeglasses or sunglasses, with or without anti-reflective and oleophobic coatings. Many people clean their glasses this way: they exhale on the lenses and then wipe away the fog with a piece of cloth (not very clean). In a couple of months, their plastic lenses are damaged, and, much to the delight of their opticians, they order a new pair of glasses in less than a year.
When I started wearing reading glasses every day about ten years ago, I didn't know how to clean them. I looked at many cleaning products and even tried several until I found the best way to clean my glasses without scratching them: washing them. It should be noted that when I did some research before starting this video, I realized that the idea is not new and that many people clean their glasses this way!
The most important thing is to never dry your lenses with paper towels, which contain wood fibers that can scratch them. Also, never use 100% cotton towels, which can also be dusty and contain abrasive particles.
Of course, you can use special eyeglass cleaners, but why waste money when tap water, a drop of dish soap, and a drop of isopropyl or ethyl alcohol cost next to nothing?
Simply wash the dust off your lenses with warm water. Then apply dishwashing liquid to both sides of the lens and rub them gently. Rinse with tap water, then do a final rinse with distilled water. Distilled water is necessary if your tap water is hard. Then dry with an air blower or compressed-gas cleaner. Your lenses will be clear and clean without scratches.
And now for more detail: Wash your hands to remove any grease from your fingers. Rinse your glasses with warm water to remove dust from the lenses. Simply squeeze a little dish soap between your fingers. Dish soap is designed to remove oily and greasy residue from dishes. That's what you want to do with your glasses! You want to remove grease!
Carefully apply the dish soap with your fingers in circular motions to both sides of the lenses. You can also continue applying the soap to the rest of the frame, including the temples, bridge, and nose pads.
Rinse your glasses with warm water to remove the soap. Do not use your fingers when rinsing. If your tap water is hard, meaning it contains more dissolved calcium and magnesium salts, you will need to rinse your glasses in distilled water.
After rinsing, shake or tap your glasses against your knee to remove any water droplets. Now use a compressed air blower or gas cleaner and blow away any water left after tapping your knee. If you used distilled water, blowing is unnecessary. The water will dry without leaving any traces of salt on the glass.
All glasses often come with a small cloth. Opticians provide this small cloth for a reason: they want you to come to them more often! Any cloth, especially paper towels and any other paper products, will scratch the lenses because they contain abrasive particles. Furthermore, cloth and paper usually only spread dirt all over the lenses.
When using compressed air cleaner, squeeze the trigger gently because it can "spit" liquid into the gas stream. If this happens, you will need to repeat the cleaning process with water and detergent. You can use a cloth to remove any residual water just from the edges of the lenses.
A note about alcohol: Some people say that alcohol can remove lens coatings and leave lenses fogged. I've used isopropyl alcohol to clean particularly greasy lenses and never noticed any problems. Isopropyl alcohol is also used in commercially available pre-moistened lens cloths.
The same technique can be used to clean professional camera lens filters. Wash them with dishwasher detergent, then rinse them under running water, followed by a final rinse with distilled water. Then, remove all drips with an air blower. Unfortunately, this technique cannot be used to clean the front lens elements.