What Are Safety Glasses Used For? Your Ultimate Guide

Safety glasses protect your eyes from flying materials, debris and other airborne hazards to a light or moderate impact standard. 

They're usually made of impact resistant and shatterproof materials like polycarbonate, nylon, TR90 or TRXE and must have side protection.

Let's dive deep into the world of safety glasses and why they're so important.

We'll also help you find best pair of safety glasses for you.

Why should you wear safety glasses?

Over 50,000 eye injuries happen in Australia each year and 20% are severe enough to require hospitalisation.

Wearing safety glasses is the best way to protect your eyes.

Construction, Mining, Manufacturing, Agriculture and even Wholesale & Retail Trade are all industries where eye injuries occur every single day.

Many of these industries have rules and regulations making protective eyewear compulsory.

Beyond that though, it's easy to take our eyes for granted and ditch the safety glasses, especially when they're typically ugly, uncomfortable and annoying bits of PPE.

But, imagine losing your vision because you didn't fancy wearing your safeties?

And the reality is the worst does happen.

That's why wearing safety glasses is massively important for thousands of people across Australia. 

Common Causes of Eye Injuries

If you're a Tradie, Miner or FIFO worker, eye injuries can happen at any time. Flying debris from metal, wood or plastic, can spit up at you from all types of jobs.

Healthcare workers are exposed to hazardous fluids on a daily basis.

Or if you're a weekend warrior getting after it, stray dirt, debris and liquid splashes can catch you in the eyes when you least expect it.

Bottom line is, there are so many potential dangers for your eyes. You never know what hazards you could face on the job and beyond.

So wrap 'em up. Reliable eye protection is a must.

Types of Safety Glasses and Their Protective Features

There are so many different safety glasses out there in a wide range of shapes and sizes, all with varying claims and features.

So how do you choose the right pair?

AS/NZS 1337.1 Certification

Your top priority is to wear AS/NZS 1337.1 certified safety glasses.

AS/NZS 1337.1 is the benchmark for safety glasses in Australia. When you see this certification, this tells you they've been rigorously tested and proven to meet Australian Standards for medium impact protection.

All SafeStyle pairs are tested and certified to this standard.

Basically, you know they will be tough as hell and will protect your eyes from whatever your day-to-day worksite (and weekend!) will throw at you.

Outdoor Safety Glasses

Working outdoors demands elite UV protection.

UV400 protection blocks 99.9% of the sun's rays that are harmful to your eyes and skin.

In Australia, we emphasise protecting our from the sun, but sun protection for your eyes equally important to prevent retina damage, macular degeneration and even cancer on your eyes and eyelids.

All SafeStyle pairs offer UV400 protection, and we recommend Polarised or Tinted lenses for outdoor use.

Indoor Safety Glasses

If you mostly work indoors, your best bet is clear lens safety glasses for clarity of vision to let you focus on the job.

A photochromic lens is a great option if you're often going indoors and outdoors. They change from clear when you're inside to tinted when you're outside.

Prescription Safety Glasses

If you need prescription lenses, it's well worth getting a good pair of prescription safety glasses to give you adequate protection.

Don't settle for cumbersome 'overspecs' that fit over your regular prescription glasses.

They will only make you less likely to wear your safeties.

SafeStyle offers prescription lenses in Classics and Fusions.

Innovations in Safety Glasses Technology

Most safety glasses are made from polycarbonate, a super-hard plastic composite that's highly impact resistant.

Polycarbonate is a great material for eye protection as it's light, and is tough enough to provide protection against potential hazards.

But traditionally, safety glasses have just used a cheap strip of polycarbonate that awkwardly wraps around your head to cover your eyes.

Sure, this does the job...

But they're horrible to wear!

SafeStyle have pushed the boundaries of what safety glasses can be.

Why do safety glasses have to be ugly monstrosities that nobody wants to wear?

Cue the Classics - the world's first stylish safety glasses that started a revolution!

Then we made another design. And another. And another. (You get the picture.)

Now you can shop the full range of SafeStyle safety glasses that are AS/NZS 1337.1 certified and look so good you can wear them 'from the worksite to the weekend'.

Improving Worksite Safety with Stylish Protective Eyewear

The creation of stylish safety glasses means that people on worksites all across Australia are loving wearing their safeties.

Wearing eye protection is no longer a horrible experience.

And as people now take more and interest in how they look on the worksite, there's increased awareness about the importance of eye protection.

When people love wearing their safety glasses, they're more likely to wear them all the time.

The result? Overall eye safety improves, on and off the job.

With SafeStyles, you'll love wearing 'em, you'll protect your eyes from horror injuries and, as an added bonus, they'll get the Safety Officer off your back.

If you're not wearing SafeStyle, what are you doing?! 

Upgrade To The Ultimate Safety Glasses

Eye protection is crucial to prevent life-changing eye injuries at work and beyond.

But the days of wearing hideously ugly and uncomfortable safety glasses are over.

There's a protective eyewear revolution!

SafeStyle have created a full range of stylish safety glasses so there's no excuse for wearing those ugly 'speed dealers'.

Protective Eyewear is now a fashion statement.

Our mission at SafeStyle is to produce stylish safety glasses for everyone, so people can look good and protect their eyes.

So now's the time to upgrade to the ultimate safety glasses.

Choose your style, stay safe and look epic 'from the worksite to the weekend'.

Click below to check out the full SafeStyle range.