Tips for Choosing the Right Frames When You're Over Age 50

Everyone wants to look younger. Young people just seem to radiate more energy, appear friendlier and come across as less arrogant. As you age, changing your style and fashion to fit in with trends will help you project a more youthful appearance. Did you realize that your current eyewear may be making you look older than you really are?

Choosing the right frame styles can actually help you look younger. Some frame styles seem to take years off your face. Here are a few tips for choosing eyewear that might make you look up to 20 years younger.

The over-50 set is looking for stylish eyewear that complements their age and gives them a more youthful appearance. If you are in your 50s or older, you probably are looking for eyewear fashions geared to helping you age gracefully. Consider the following guidelines as you make your selections.

The shape of your frames should work in your favor to help you achieve a natural facelift. Look for frames with eye shapes that are uplifting to the face. Softer and more rounded corners are more desirable than sharp edges. Rounded corners help to soften the facial features and naturally lift the features of the face. 

For aging women, cat-eye shapes have softer edges and provide a slight uplifting appearance. For aging men, upswept rectangular shapes with rounded corners are very flattering.

When it comes to color, go for warmth. Cool and flashy tones are best left to the younger generations. Warmer tones look great on both aging men and women. Look for frames in browns, berry tones, and jewel tones. These are very flattering for older women. Men should look for blues, browns, grays, burgundies, and greens. 

Keep your eye out for shiny materials to give your eyes a natural sparkle, but take care to avoid dull colors, plain silver, and basic black. It's time to allow your best features to stand out, not blend in with the crowd.

Size matters, especially as we age! When looking for frames, make sure you don't choose frames that are too small vertically. As we age, especially past 45 years of age, we develop presbyopia, the loss of near or close focusing power. This causes many of us to need different prescriptions for near and distance vision. As a result, you may need a multifocal eyeglass lens. Your optician will be able to help you with lens choices.

While very small frame shapes are fine for distance glasses or dedicated reading glasses, they don't leave much room for line flat-top bifocals or no-line progressive lenses. Also, as the newer digitally processed custom-designed progressive lenses work better than ever in small frames, a larger vertical dimension usually is much better for comfortable reading vision.

What has made the current over-50 set unique is that, unlike previous generations, they are not afraid to experiment with colors and different shapes. 

Look for deeper shapes with a retro look. These are great for those who are truly young at heart and want just a little more style in their eyewear.

Many over-50s tend to reach for over-the-counter reading glasses, or "granny glasses." These are the glasses you sometimes see on the end of people's noses while they are gazing over the tops of them. Avoid this look as it tends to make you look much, much older!

No-line invisible progressive lenses are a great option for a youthful appearance. Also remember that just because you could be a candidate for a progressive lens, you don't have to wear them all the time. You will have access to not only good, clear distance vision, but also arm's-length vision and near vision without putting your glasses on and taking them off all day.