Review: 1-Day Acuvue Define Contact Lens (Natural Shine)

Four months later, I finally have time to make this post! Or more like, to take the photos that I need for this post. A bit of a stretch from my usual posts on this blog since this isn't exactly skincare, but these contact lenses are cosmetic in that they enlarge the appearance of your iris. I've also tried another product from the same line, the Acuvue Define Vivid, and you can find my review of that here.

Description (taken from acuvue.com.sg):

• One-day contact lenses to enhance the beauty of your eyes naturally
• Get brighter eyes with 1 DAY ACUVUE DEFINE Contact Lenses. It’s so subtle and natural that nobody will know your beauty secret.
• 1 DAY ACUVUE DEFINE contact lenses are ideal if you:
  - Want to enhance the beauty of your eyes
  - Desire the natural effect of bigger, brighter, more defined eyes
  - Consider eye health to be as important as beauty
  - Want a beauty lens suitable for everyday wear

My impression:

These lenses are only available in Asia, so you have to order it online. There are 3 styles: Vivid, Natural Shine and Accent. This post is about Natural Shine and I've already reviewed Acuvue Define Vivid back in August. Acuvue Define are daily contacts but I know Japan has bi-weeklies available in Vivid style. The dailies only come with an 8.5 curve and the bi-weeklies only come with an 8.3 curve.

A picture is worth a thousand words so I'm going to let this table below explain the different styles and what they look like.

taken from acuvue.com.sg

Reviewers have said that Vivid gives you the most iris enlargement, even though Natural Shine is only 0.1mm less in "Dark Ring Outer Diameter" at 12.7mm. I must say after trying both that I agree. Here's the proof:

Here's a photo of my left eye with Acuvue Define Natural Shine, and my right eye without.

Right eye without contact lens, Left eye with Acuvue Define Natural Shine

And for comparison, here is the Acuvue Define Vivid (eyes with and without lens are switched here)

Right eye with Acuvue Define Vivid; Left eye without

Now, obviously I took these on different days with totally different lighting so I don't expect you to compare one photo to the other. But just looking at the first photo and comparing both eyes, my right eye without contact lens doesn't look THAT small compared to my left eye. But in the second picture, my left eye without contact lens looks pretty small compared to my right eye. Also, in the first photo, you can still see some sclera (the white of your eye) between the contacts and my lower eyelid. In the second photo, the contacts are big enough that you don't see any sclera between the contacts and my lower eyelid.

I think I get LESS blurry vision with this than with Acuvue Define Vivid, which makes sense because if you look up at the chart, the inner diameter of this one is much larger at 6.6mm, whereas Acuvue Define Vivid has an inner ring diameter of only 6.2mm. It still moves around as much as Acuvue Define Vivid when I am looking out in the corner of my eye, increasing the blurry vision. And as expected, they're not as comfortable as my 1-Day Acuvue Moist contact lenses, where I really literally feel like I have nothing in my eye. For more details about what I mean by "uncomfortable" and "blurry vision," I've already written about it in my Acuvue Define Vivid post so please check that out.

Summary:

Not as comfortable as 1-Day Acuvue Moist i.e. I could feel that there were contacts in my eyes
Blurriness along the perimeter of your vision from the colored part of the lens
The lens do move around every now and then
Less enlargement with these contacts versus Vivid style
$35 for a pack of 30 lens (15 days worth) on various websites

Grade: 3.5/5 because it enlarges my eyes less than Vivid and with the same bit of blurry vision and lens movement

Value: 4/5 because it's not much more expensive than your regular non-cosmetic 1-day contact lenses

Repurchase? I might..but I have a feeling I might just go for Vivid only next time since those give a better enlargement