How to Repair Scratched Eyeglass Lenses

Written By: Andrew Rose

Comments: 28

Difficulty

Easy

Steps

Time Required

5 - 10 minutes

Introduction

Scratches in eyeglass lenses can make them difficult to see through. Fortunately, scratches can be fixed to make your glasses look just like new. Keep your glasses clear and free of blemishes in these few easy steps.

Tools

Step 1

Place the eyeglasses, wax, and cloth on a flat surface.

Step 2

Remove any dirt or debris stuck to the lenses with a soft cleaning cloth.
Clean glasses gently; using excessive force can grind dirt into lenses and cause more scratches.

Avoid rubbing in a circular motion so that the axis of the lens is not displaced.

Ros Woodhouse - 25/08/20

Step 3

Dab some vehicle wax on the scratched area of the lens.

Step 4

Buff wax into lens with a lint-free cloth using small, circular motions until the scratch is gone. This can take up to 5 minutes.
For especially deep scratches, you may need to re-apply wax and buff multiple times.
You may need multiple cloths, as the wax sticks to the cloth easily.

Step 5

Using lukewarm water, rinse off glasses for 10-15 seconds to remove any additional wax.
To dry off glasses and remove any remaining wax on the lenses, wipe them off using a clean cloth.

Une explication simple et très utile

Abd El aziz -

Wax repels water, so unless an emulsifier is used, like a liquid soap, simply running the glasses under water won't remove any wax.

Angela -

Didn't work for my glasses. Anyone need their car waxed? I have some car wax to use up now.

Angie Sheidler -

Conclusion

For particularly deep or persistent scratches, repeat these steps until the scratch is repaired.

Author

Andrew Rose

Member since: 10/04/15

2163 Reputation

24 comments

thank you, i have a scratched lens and will try this. cheers.

amackay5 - 20/04/16

Stupid is as stupid does! Think about it. A scratch is a certain width, when you polish it you are just grinding off the edges of the scratch and actually making it wider. So unless you are capable of removing all the surrounding material to the depth of the deepest part of the scratch AND maintaining the profile to within a very very small tolerance then this just WILL NOT work. Filling the scratch with wax cannot work either as wax does not have the same refractive index as the lens material. Conclusion: take care of your glasses and if you are careless enough to damage them it's your own fault, accept responsibility and replace them.

abscomm - 22/09/16

This sounds like "I've not tried this but I've thought about it for a few minutes and this is what I think will happen". Very short on evidence.

steve - 21/11/16

Wow!!! Just couldn’t help yourself could you. Perhaps you’ve heard “If you can’t say something nice say nothing at all”! Grow up without doing it at someone elses expense.

Yaya - 09/03/19

Obviously, this person has never made a mistake and is absolutely perfect in every way.

Stuart Conner - 05/09/20

Wrong concept in your mind. Wax fills and doesn’t take away any “edges”. Like it does on your car. Makes it look better by filling small scratches. It works. I think you might be thinking along the lines of using an abrasive to polish. That’s completely different than WAX. Wax fills…not removes.

A Day - 09/05/21

I appreciate your honest evaluation, however I'd like to know if it is an assumption or have you actually experimented?

From your technical language I would think that you're correct, but your perception regarding damages as being a result of irresponsibility makes me question your comprehension of facts.

James Carter -

Actually, abscomm, this isn't POLISHING, it's WAXING which is completely different. POLISHING uses a fine grit to buff the surrounding areas to match the depth of the scratch (Turtle Wax brand has a polishing clay but this isn't talking about that) while WAXING uses WAX to fill in scratches. I was stupid and used TP to dry my glasses bc I was too lazy to go downstairs and find my glasses case with my cloths and they got a lot of really fine scratches. I found this site, tried Turtle Wax, and now ALL of the fine scratches are filled with WAX and buffed with my correct lens cloth to an even, shiny surface and they work fine now. The scratches were so fine that the refractive index (you're so fancy) of the wax doesn't make a difference because it's better than the refraction that occurs when there are scratches even if the scratches were bigger. However, if they were bigger it wouldn't be worth trying because you couldn't see through but mine were about 1/10 of a hair each so this worked great.

Crimson Ananda - 23/09/16

This left my glasses a smeary mess. After using mild soap to wash them three times I believe I have washed all the wax off ☹️

Scott Weber - 18/05/17

Yes the last fellow says it all

‘have the lens replaced'

Tried all these things wax, nonabrasive toothpaste, baking soda etc etc and nothing works.

Parvaiz Lodhi - 05/11/17

I did this following using toothpaste to try & smooth over the scratches my sweet sweet puppy left on my glasses after deciding they were his new toy. Toothpaste didn't do much. With the wax, I can still see the scratches when I look at the lenses, but the glare/lines caused by the scratches are almost gone. These are scratch resistant anti glare lenses. I ordered another pair, but tried this for the !&&* of it since they couldn't get any worse. I think I might be able to use my chewed up lenses until the new ones arrive! Thank you!

shimmer007211 - 13/05/18

Heckin language filter;)

shimmer007211 - 13/05/18

This doesnt actually work, but it makes you feel good for the effort.

Scratches and abrasions are micro or even macro deviations in the surface of the lens, which at one point was a smoothly polished common level surface. Removing a scratch or abrasion requires resurfacing the lens.

What this and other attempts like toothpaste, baking soda, polishing compound and others do is clean the surface. That's all they can do unless you use a micro polishing cloth, like a super fine emory cloth which will grind down the surface of your glasses. This latter approach will likely remove any coatings you may have on the surface and could alter the vision index of the lens if applied to heavily.

I've tried the author's method and several other methods with 2 different sets of glasses with unsuccessful scratch and abrasion removal results. At best, you will get, temporarily, highly polished, but not scratch removed results.

Jon - 06/04/19

Wrong, wrong. Did I say wrong. This is different than using an abasive like those you mentioned. Was fills just like on your car’s paint when applied. Scratches disappear, at least temporarily until the wax goes away (just like on your car) and have to be repeated from time to time. I don’t make it a week or so with new glasses before they are scratched…so waxing periodically couldn’t be any more troublesome than ordering new glasses several times per year.

A Day - 09/05/21

&&^& everyone who commented on this

cumdumpster - 23/01/20

its works great deep or persistent scratches will come out but it neds

to be done a few times patience always wins out!!!

Thank You!

Yehuda

yehuda lieberman - 28/01/20

You can also use toothpaste.

Lorenzo Levi Brown - 08/12/20

Wax actually fills the scratch like it does on your car. As it hardens and is polished with a buffing cloth the filled scratch seems to be gone, which is just as good as if it were actually removed. You do have to repeat periodically.

A Day - 09/05/21

Sounds just like 'abscomm' is selling glasses

Kevin Hp -

Seems to me wax fix is less about filling in to replace scratched-out vision-assist area of lens, but more to mitigate random points of entry for variously-shaped specks of light that'd interfere with vision overall.

Just a thought .01

GammaJo

Bonnie Sue Click -

This works fine just don't do it too often or it may hurt your lens and you will have to buy new ones

Marcellus Powell Jr -

Does it matter if the lenses are glass or plastic, coated or not? TY

Paula Thompson -

Il n'a dit que la vérité. Verres rayées verre à jeter

byalinby -

I have tried toothpaste and it does work. It needs to be the type that is slightly abrasive ("whitening"). The scratches were so shallow in the plastic lenses that you could rub hard and eventually remove them. It takes quite a lot of rubbing though!

Turtle Wax also has an abrasive, so should work the same way, but I haven't tried it.

It all depends of course on what coating you have on the lenses. In some cases the rubbing can remove the coating, and this seems to make it all worse. You can continue and remove all the coating, but again that takes ages.

egriffiths -