The three kinds of colored contact lenses currently available in the market are visibility tints, enhancement tints and opaque color tints. Colored contact lenses also come in designs that suit people affected with astigmatism or people who are in search of bifocal contacts or disposable contact lens. The appearance of the iris, the colored portion in the middle of the eye, has inspired many manufacturers to put minute colored dots on these lenses so that they will closely resemble the iris. This will not interfere with visibility as the overlying portion of the lens above the pupil is left clear.

Colored contact lenses have become one of the hottest fashion accessories of late with their ability to do a variety of things with your eyes. These lenses allow you to change your eye color with ease, improve your eye color, add brightness to your eye color or prevent suns' rays from damaging your eye. They can also enhance your appearance by giving special effects to your eyes such as shining in darkness, which will allow you to grab eye balls while you are participating in parties or dinners. You can also have these lenses in plano form, even though not all of these colored contact lenses are offered in this form.

Now, let us acquire a deeper understanding of colored contact lenses. Colored contact lenses available in the market can be classified into three kinds. They are

1. Visibility Tints

These tints are not intended at enhancing your eye color or providing special effects to your eye. They help you to experience better visibility and they usually come as lenses having a light green or blue tint added to them so that you can spot them easily while handling them.

2. Enhancement Tints

Enhancement tint, unlike visibility tints, intensify your eye color. These tints enable people unsatisfied with their eye color intensity to enhance their eye color. Despite being solid, they are translucent in nature.

3. Opaque Color Tints

Opaque color tints facilitate complete change of eye color. Made of solid colors patterns, they are available in a diverse range of colors, comprising hazel, green, amethyst, gray, blue, and violet. This is the only alternative for dark-eyed people to change their eye color.

Opaque color tints also include costume contact lenses, which have a regular feature of movies for decades. Also known as theatrical contact lenses, the special-effects provided by them result in outrageous outlooks like that of a jaguar or an alien.

The U.S. law has made prescriptions mandatory for buying colored contact lenses of all kinds. While using these lenses, you have to be extremely careful not to share them with anyone. The variation in eye specifications with each individual and the possibility of developing eye infection due to the action of hazardous bacteria transmitted from another person who earlier worn these lenses have prompted doctors to voice their opinion against sharing of any type of contact lenses.

While on the lookout for a colored contact lens, you have to buy a pair of lens that does justice to your intentions. If you want to impress onlookers, you can go for colored contact lenses that produce a noticeable change in eye color. If you do not want people to sense that you are using contact lenses, you can select lenses giving subtle changes in eye color.