The contact lenses that are in use these days may be either soft or hard. The softer ones are better for the eyes and therefore they are becoming more and more popular. These lenses contain soft material, which is a type of plastic. This material contains much of water. The combination of the plastic and the water forms a jelly like material. This is very soft and when we put in the eyes, the eyes do not even realize that something is in contact with them.

The soft lenses:

Before the advent of the soft lenses in the 1960's, the rigid lenses were in use since the last 120 years first they were made from glass but later a plastic came into use for making the lenses. However, there were some disadvantages of the hard lenses. Therefore, efforts were going on at that time to develop the soft lenses overcoming these defects.

Otto Wicherle first made the soft lenses.

In these lenses, he made use of a hydro gel. Today silicone is an important material for the manufacturing of the soft lenses.

The advantages of the soft lenses:

The main advantages of these lenses as the name would suggest is that they are soft and therefore they provide better comfort to the eyes. The hard lenses would need some time for the eyes to become comfortable to them. While, the soft lenses do not require any time for the eyes to become comfortable to them.

The next main advantage of and aim of these lenses is that they have very good oxygen permeability. This is very important as without the oxygen supply

Moreover, we can also use two lenses on top of each other for better correction of vision.

In addition to this, some of the soft lenses are also protecting from the ultraviolet rays of the sunlight.

Disadvantages:

They are soft and therefore they are more fragile than the harder contact lenses. There is a danger of tearing or ripping of them.

Therefore, most of soft lenses are disposable. This is because as they are soft they do not last long. Therefore, it is important that we need to replace them after sometime.