Dr Andrew Collins on TVNZ 1's Fair Go

Price is not indicative of how well sunglasses protect our eyes from harmful UV light, concluded Dr Andrew Collins in a recent Fair Go episode.

Dr Collins, School of Optometry and Vision Science at Auckland University, tested several sunglasses for the show, measuring how much visible glare and invisible UV light the sunglass lenses allowed through. Ideally, lenses shouldn’t let any UV light through at all and they need to have a dark enough tint to protect against glare and provide comfortable vision, he said.

“$10 sunglasses can work just as well as $400 ones,” said Dr Collins, advising consumers to always look for a New Zealand, Australia or European standard label when buying sunglasses.