Types of contact lenses
Contacts have come a long way since their early days (no more glass contacts, thank goodness), giving you access to a wide range of features designed to enhance comfort and keep your eyes healthy. To make it easier to pick a brand, we gathered information about 10 types of contact lenses:
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Soft
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Rigid gas permeable
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Daily
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Extended wear
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Spherical
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Toric
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Monovision
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Multifocal
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Bifocal
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Colored
Grab a snack, sit back, and learn more about how you can use contact lenses to make your life better.
Soft contacts
Soft contact lenses are made from flexible materials, making them extremely comfortable. It also takes less time to adapt to soft contacts. If you have age-related farsightedness (better known as presbyopia), you can even get soft contacts designed to correct for multiple distances.
How it works: Manufacturers use a variety of materials to make soft contacts. These materials all have one thing in common: they're flexible. Maybe not as flexible as an Olympic gymnast but close enough. This flexibility allows oxygen and moisture to circulate freely.
Best for: Soft contacts are ideal for people who spend several hours per day using screens, as they have features designed to reduce eye strain and increase comfort. We also recommend soft lenses for first-time contact users.
Rigid gas-permeable contacts
As their name implies, rigid gas-permeable contacts are harder than soft contacts. But just because they're rigid doesn't mean they'll harm your eyes. In fact, gas-permeable contacts allow more oxygen to reach the front of the eye, increasing comfort. Because they're not as flexible as soft lenses, gas-permeable contacts also conform easily to your eye's shape.
Rigid lenses are classified as conventional contacts, as they typically use older technology. Although they're rigid, gas-permeable lenses aren't the same thing as hard contact lenses.
How it works: Manufacturers use silicone-based compounds to make gas-permeable contacts. By improving oxygen circulation, these compounds make it easier to wear contacts for long periods of time.
Best for: Gas-permeable lenses are ideal for users with astigmatism, a condition caused by an abnormal curve in the lens or cornea of your eye. Because these types of contact lenses don't move around as much as soft ones, they do a better job correcting for that abnormal curve.
Daily disposable contacts
Not sure about your commitment to soaking lenses in contact solution every night? No worries! Daily disposables are meant to be worn for a single day.
How it works: In 1960, experiments to make contacts out of water-absorbing (hydrophilic) plastic began, and the first soft lens made of such material became available commercially in the United States in 1971. The water content of today’s soft lenses ranges from 30% to 80%.
Best for: We recommend daily disposables for teens and young adults, as they require no ongoing maintenance. Disposable lenses are also ideal for busy adults who want a no-muss, no-fuss approach to eye care.
Extended-wear contacts
Extended-wear contacts last for 2 to 4 weeks, so you don't have to worry about removing them every day. You can even wear them while you're sleeping.
How it works: Manufacturers use durable materials to make extended-wear contacts. These materials last longer than the materials used to make soft lenses, allowing you to wear them for more than a week at a time.
Best for: Extended-wear lenses are ideal for busy users who don't want to worry about removing and cleaning their contacts daily.
Spherical contacts
Spherical contacts are simple spherical lenses used to treat myopia, hyperopia and presbyopia. Although they sound more like words out of a Harry Potter spell, myopia, hyperopia, and presbyopia are medical terms:
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Myopia: Nearsightedness
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Hyperopia: Farsightedness
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Presbyopia: The gradual loss of your ability to see things up close; it's a normal part of aging (but you're not getting old, we swear)
How it works: Spherical contacts have a different shape than regular contact lenses. This allows them to correct different types of vision problems.
Best for: Spherical contacts are best for individuals who have myopia, hyperopia, or presbyopia.
Toric contacts
Toric lenses are designed to correct the abnormal curve associated with astigmatism.
How it works: Toric lenses have a cylindrical shape, which gives them specialized focusing powers. These powers allow the lenses to correct the refractive error responsible for astigmatism. Refraction refers to how light bends when it passes through your eye's lens.
Best for: Toric lenses are best for users with astigmatism.
Monovision contacts
Most types of contact lenses have the same prescription for each lens. If you get a pair of monovision contacts, each pair has a different prescription, allowing one eye to see well up close and one eye to see clearly when you view objects from a distance.
How it works: One lens corrects the vision in your dominant eye, making it easier to see objects at a distance. The other lens leaves your nondominant eye a little nearsighted, allowing you to see close objects.
Best for: You may benefit from monovision contacts if you have presbyopia, cataracts, or another vision problem that makes it difficult to see up close without using reading glasses.
Multifocal contacts
Multifocal contacts correct your vision at multiple distances.
How it works: Each multifocal lens has multiple prescription strengths, allowing you to see clearly without squinting or putting on a pair of reading glasses. Just think of yourself as Batman and your multifocal lenses as one of the uber-cool tools in your bat arsenal.
Best for: We recommend multifocal lenses for users who need multiple types of vision correction.
Bifocal contacts
Bifocal lenses correct both nearsightedness and farsightedness.
How it works: Each lens contains two prescriptions, allowing you to see objects up close and from far away.
Best for: Bifocal contacts are ideal for users with presbyopia, as they correct near and distance vision without the need for reading glasses.
Colored contacts
Due to their rarity, pale eyes have long been desirable. Until the introduction of colored contacts, people born with dark eyes could not mimic the appearance of their blue-eyed and green-eyed friends.
How it works: If you want to experiment with your eye color, you have several different types of contact lenses at your disposal. Opaque contacts have a solid layer of color around the iris, which masks the true color of your eyes. Instead of obscuring your eye color, enhancers simply make your natural shade stand out more. Visibility-tinted lenses have a slight tint, so they don't hide your natural eye color. However, they do make it easy to find your lenses if you drop them.
Best for: Colored contacts are ideal for users who want to change their eye color occasionally. These lenses are also extremely popular with actors.
The best type of contact lens for you
Technological advancements have made it possible to use contacts for several types of vision correction. Whether you choose soft contacts, daily disposables, conventional lenses, or another type, you'll need a professional eye exam to determine what type of correction you need.
Once you have a prescription in hand, 1-800 Contacts can help you get your ideal lens. Visit our website to learn more about how to order your preferred brand.
Did you know you can order contacts online?
Say goodbye to trips to the eye doctor and hello to convenience! With 1-800 Contacts, you can easily order your contact lenses online and have them delivered straight to your door. Plus, our online vision exam makes it simple to get the prescription you need without leaving home. And the best part? You’ll save money on your first order with 1-800 Contacts. It’s never been easier to get your contacts!
Original publish date: April 29th, 2021
Updated: February 18th, 2025