What does “polarized” even mean? Natural light travels in all directions and is classified as unpolarized. When those light beams come into contact with a reflective surface, such as sunlight hitting water, snow, or a wet road, it reflects back in one direction. The light becomes polarized. When you are outside, you may notice this light reflecting back onto you causing uncomfortable glare.
How do polarized lenses help? The majority of reflected light is horizontally polarized, meaning it is arranged horizontally. Polarized lenses have a polarization filter that is aligned vertically and therefore blocks the reflected light, almost completely eliminating reflections off water or wet roads when driving.
How do they compare to regular sun lenses? Sunglasses that are not polarized are often referred to as “tints”. Tints help reduce sunlight intensity and offer the same protection against UV light, but do not help as much with glare reduction.
Are there downsides to them? Polarized lenses require an additional filter that needs to be built into the lens and is usually custom-made, so they can be slightly higher in cost than just regular tinted lenses. Another thing to note is that when using your phone or another digital device, the screen may have a “rainbow effect” or it may become very dark and almost impossible to read. This is because your phone/device contains a polarized filter too so when looking at it through another polarized filtering lens, light almost disappears completely.
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