New York / Vision East Expo Days 1

What a week!

Late March, our flights are all scheduled, we've re-jigged our diary and all prepared to take head down to New York on the first flight on Thursday morning to get us to our first workshop for 10 am.  Taking the days out of Ocean's diary is a big commitment for both Dr. McGinty and Dr. Wilson, however Euan & John feel that to offer both the best services and most wonderful products our commitment to seeking these out has to be there.

This exhibition we were being joined by our optician, Erin, her first visit to any of the international expo's - we knew it was going to WOW her.

Halifax airport the day before the storm!

Then ... the weather throws us a curve ball.  On Sunday forecasts started to come in about one last winter storm on yet another Wednesday.  Knowing how the previous Wednesday storms of 2014 had affected flights and transport we had to make a decision, take a chance on the Thursday morning flights or re-arrange everything last minute.  Gulp!  We took the latter, but it's hard to believe as we sat at the airport taking in the scene that a storm was really going to arrive.

Both docs arrived in to the office on Tuesday morning, and met with Mike and Erin.  Mike had kindly volounteered to hold the fort at Ocean while we were away as he'd done NYC last year.  This is no mean feat, as when we are busy and everyone rocks up at once you have to be quite the juggler to cope, but we know Mike is more than capable.

We see our eye exams that were already scheduled in and at 11 am head to the airport for our new flights.  Everything was smooth, we flew down to Philly and then on to New York:

Stopover in Philadelphia

Jump in our car and head in to the city for our hastily re-arranged reservation at the Yotel (more about it later  - but lets just say, it's hip and purple!).

So, having rolled the dice and decided to get ahead of the storm, we were safely in New York.  We kept our eyes on the various news feeds to see what was happening back home in NS with the impending storm.  All settled in we headed out for dinner, so many choices in NYC, where to go - a quick stroll found us an incredible steak house and we knew the trip was off to a fantastic start!

Stay tuned!

Green with envy?

Green with envy?

With spring just around the corner what better way to celebrate than wearing a frame which shines with the hue of the season....green. I know what your thinking...sure...yeah...ok green looks great on other people - but not on me. Are you sure?  Have you tried the many different shades and textures of green? Green can be bold and exciting or soft and subtle.

Think of mother nature's palette and you will realize that there is, indeed, a green out there for everyone - and we are here to help you find it.

Drift Eyewear Atticus

Is it possible to be soft and bold at the same time? The 'Atticus' by Drift certainly is. A warm green matte front is balanced perfectly with smooth, sleek temples handcrafted from the deck of a 70's racing yacht.

A frame with a story where you could be the next chapter. Where will it take you?

TD Tom Davies Bespoke

Choices, choices so many choices!  With TD Tom Davies you become the designer. Take your new found love of green to a whole new level and create your own masterpiece.

Change the size, colour and finish of your favourite style. Then - put your name on it (or handle, or mantra) and call it your own.

Bellinger Turbulens

Danish designed Bellinger screams sleek, sexy and sophisticated. Vibrant, bright colours such as this uber shocking lime green transform your glasses from an accessory to a statement.

Yet -the easy to wear style compliments the bright colours and makes for a perfectly balanced piece of eyewear.

Oliver Goldsmith Lord

Green isn't just for the frame. Why not try green lenses in your sunglasses to create a unique and fashionable look? While still dark enough to provide great sun coverage they take your style to a whole new level. 

This combination looks especially striking against tortoiseshell frames such as this Oliver Goldsmith beauty.

Claire Goldsmith Hollander

Retro meets modern, jade meets crystal in this stunning combination by Claire Goldsmith.

Sharp angles coupled with non-descript temples create a unique and wonderful style. Reminiscent of the fashion icons of the 50's and 60's this frame will turn heads and spark conversations.

gӧtti Winny

Sharp design made with ultra-light titanium this frame by gӧtti has solid style while feeling virtually weightless.

Classically beautiful this timeless piece will elicit rave reviews for years to come.

SALT. Clark

California style & California cool - does it get any better than this? SALT. optics are superbly well made frames with a style that is perfectly on-trend.

With SALT. green is never just green - its 'olive gradient' or 'tweed moss' and it's stunning.

UV protection and You!

We are all much better now at using sunscreen to protect ourselves from the damage that can happen through UV rays.  Can the same be said about protecting our eyes?

The harmful effects of ultra-violet radiation on the eyes has now been well documented, however, what many do not appreciate is how important it is to protect children's eyes.  Children spend more time playing outside, their pupils are larger allowing for more light (including non-visible light) to enter the eyes.  Research has also shown that a significant amount of our total lifetime UV exposure now happens by the age of 18 and we know that the damage adds up over time.

So how can we protect our eyes?

UV protection -definitely cool

There's obvious steps which can be taken, common with general sun protection, like wearing a wide brimmed hat.  We can not, however, put sun cream in our eyes, so how do we ensure that they are fully protected?

Sunglasses

The most obvious choice would be to use sunglasses, as long as they have UV protection.  You can look for certain marks like UVX or UV400 to ensure that the sunglasses will do the job properly.  Without proper UV protection, sunglasses could actually make sun damage worse as the pupils will dilate behind the dark lenses allowing more UV to enter they eye than without.

Sunglasses should be well fitting and thankfully current trends of either wrapped style or over-sized sunglasses definitely help to max out the protection and reduce peripheral light from entering the eyes.

Prescription Glasses

It may not be obvious that your prescription glasses can actually help to reduce the amount of UV light getting to the eyes.  Higher index plastic lens materials have inherent in-built UV protection as part of their optical characteristics and even standard plastic (1.5 index) can have a UV blocking treatment applied to it. 

With added benefits of being robust and durable, it is easily argued that 1.6 index plastic should now be our standard lens material of choice.  It is thinner and lighter than standard plastic, safer for the eyes with the UV protection and particularly beneficial in children's glasses as it is incredibly tough.

While prescription glasses wouldn't replace good sunglasses for overall sun protection, it is worthwhile taking the time to discuss your requirements with your optician to make sure that you are making the best choice overall.

Contact Lenses

We are increasingly finding contact lenses coming with built in UV protection and it is a feature of the lenses manufactured by Acuvue that all of their lenses have a UV blocker.  The big advantage of contact lenses in UV protection is in reducing peripheral light which gets in to the eye from oblique angles, light coming from the sides, above or below.  This Peripheral Light Factor can cause real problems for glasses and sunglasses as the light can "creep" around the edges of the glasses or be reflected from the skin and then from the back surface of the lens.

Acuvue lenses with UV protection as standard

While contact lenses will not protect the whole eye, as they only cover the cornea in the center, they will add a level of protection which is a great supplement to good quality sunglasses.  They will also allow you to choose from non-prescription sunglasses, perhaps opening up options in style, selection and having multiple pairs to suit your mood or the environment.

Whatever you are doing, whatever time of year, when you are going outside make sure that you have the best protection available and if you are unsure of what works for you, speak to your optician or optometrist for the best advice.

Cool places for cool kids?

As a new(ish) business we're keen to make sure that we are progressing and growing. One thing that is incredibly important for any optometry business is to ensure that they have a loyal patient base who like to come for their eye examinations. The reasons for this are relatively obvious, it is the solid foundation on which a business can be built, giving repeat business and a collection of advocates for your businesses and services (assuming you do a good job).

One of the hardest things to do when getting going is to create your "own" patients, people may already have a place that they go to for their eye examinations. Perhaps they have gone to their family eye doctor, which they have gone to for years; maybe they shop around from place to place with no real loyalty to any particular optometrist, seeking convenience when necessary.

To this end, as a new optometry clinic, we need to make sure that we are promoting our availability, the skill and dedication of our optometrists (Dr John Wilson and Dr Euan McGinty) and the range of services we offer.

You can perhaps imagine our disappointment, then, when we heard a friend of a friend asked, "but they don't see children, do they?". Errh ... YES!!

It would appear that the confusion came about because of the chic, cool, trendy, cutting edge, funky design of our office (enough superlatives, I think).  Apparently, though, it didn't come across as being child-friendly.

Child friendly space - read on ...

Both John and Euan are dads and know how important it is that children have regular eye examinations.  So much of children's learning is done visually that it good eyesight is integral to good quality childhood development.

Paediatric optometry is of particular interest Euan and as he's our resident uber-geek who does our website, it was one of the reasons that very early on we had a page dedicated to children's eye examinations: http://www.oceanoptometry.ca/index.php/children-s-eye-examinations.

Sometimes people are surprised when we positively advocate for regular eye examinations from a very young age, as young as six months old.  It is crucially important to assess the vision early and regularly to ensure that if any intervention is required then it can be done at the correct time and followed up accurately.  There is no doubt that we all want the best for our children, at this is true of Ocean Optometry as well.

When it comes to glasses for children, we also wish to excel at that as well.   We didn't want to just have adult glasses which have been made smaller, we wanted exceptional eyewear for our exceptional children.  As with all our collections it was important for us to research the ranges available and to select something which we felt best met the criteria.

There is no doubt that ic-berlin has really created something truly special when it comes to children's eyewear.  Their collection is designed by children and their designers to create a complete product by children, for children.  In their own words:

"For children, there are 15 models at ic! berlin. There are eyewear designs by children for children, but also crackers designed by our designers. ic! berlin glasses are lightweight, strong and beautiful. Children should have something like this.

Anyone who has children knows they can be very challenging and very very accurate ..

This challenge we glady accept. The cooperation with them makes us much fun and the kids are "stolz wie Bolle" (Berlin speak for proud). We have children badges for all of our glasses."


As we find more ranges which meet our demanding criteria we will be further expanding the selection of children's eyewear available.


A couple of final thoughts come to mind.

Firstly, why shouldn't children choose an optometry office which is cool and trendy in their outlook?  Soon enough these children will be the cool and trendy ones, as parents we will no longer be hip or groovy, we won't get their music, their fashion sense ... their friends.  As parents, though, we will always be there for them!

Secondly, having a cool and trendy optometry office with a polished concrete floor is great for children - it's incredibly easy to wipe clean and is fantastic for remote control cars!

So ... yes ... bring in your children and your families, we'd love to see them!

Ocean Optometry is definitely a cool place for cool kids of all ages!

Seeing Red?

Last week we took a peek at some fabulous blue eyeglasses that may have made you rethink what colours will work for you.

This week it's reds turn...

ic! berlin - Nameless

A true vibrant, bold red - ic!berlin 'Nameless' combines a powerful colour and shape. Not for the faint of heart this frame is a real head-turner.  Very often when choosing glasses people may shy away from the bolder and more vibrant colours, thinking "I can't wear that".  It is not until you try the frame on, though, that you get a real sense of how the colour works for you.  The bold and dramatic Nameless completely works if you are brave enough to try it on:

Another way that the brightness of the frame can be altered is with the finish of the material, take Dasha for example:

SALT. - Dasha

Precise finishing, a soft matte tone and a combination of red and black makes this SALT. frame  perfectly wearable as either an ophthalmic frame or sunglasses.  The warmer colours incorporated in this frame natural complement many skin tones and creates a bold, yet professional, look.

Rock Optika - Blue Note

Solid style, solid construction Rock Optika knocks it out of the park with 'Blue Note' in Red Zeppelin. How to make a statement without saying a word. 

The strong angles complement the fiery colour of the Rock Optika model.  Release your inner rockstar when you choose this model!

Claire Goldsmith - Wing

Not ready for a full on set of red? This pair by Claire Goldsmith combines subtle architectural details with just a whisper of red throughout the inside of the frame.

Classic, elegant lines, married together with the finest quality Italian acetates and timeless craftsmanship.  A timeless model like Wing manages to be modern, while capturing a vintage spirit of bygone Hollywood glamour.

ic! berlin Boombox!

BOOM!

There you have it, explosive styling, intricate details and an attitude as fierce as the wearer.  Here red takes centre stage in the lenses, proving its versatility and vibrancy.  Big and bold this frame is completely wearable ... if you dare!