Rimless Glasses
 

Rimless glasses frames have been around for years, but have recently been rediscovered, and are now featured by many of the top designer eyewear brands. Rimless glasses have less frame material, and no frame around the rim of the lens, so the glasses seem to float on the face. If you are shopping for rimless glasses, you should know that of all the frame designs, rimless glasses reveal the greatest amount of your face. The light lines and contours of rimless glasses add a delicacy, grace, and refined quality that regular eyeglass frames cannot provide.  Rimless glasses are ultralight and very comfortable to wear. The really light rimless titanium glasses, like the Silhouette rimless glasses, are feather light and a real pleasure to wear, especially if you are used to wearing heavy glasses. Not only are they light, but they tend to stay in one place better than regular glasses.
 

Rimless Styles

Rimless glasses frames are available in many different shapes, sizes, colors, and styles. Using our frame search function, you can shop for rimless eyeglasses with and of the specific features you want: rimless plastic, rimless metal, rimless titanium; frame size, frame color, and frame brand. Rimless eyeglasses are available with regular hinges, with spring hinges, and with no hinges. Rimless glasses come with nosepads, and without nosepads (called a saddle bridge). In general, rimless eyeglass frames cost a little more than their rimmed counterparts because it is more complicated to mount the lenses into rimless glasses.

Rimless Glasses Lenses

Rimless eyeglasses have no frame at all around the lens. A rimless eyeglass frame comes in three pieces (two temples and the nose part). Rimless eyeglass frames use the eyeglass lenses as part of the construction of the frame, so your choice of lenses is important. We only make rimless eyeglasses using polycarbonate, Trivex, or high index lenses. Regular plastic lenses should never be used to make rimless glasses because they tend to crack easily. Any rimless glasses can be made into sunglasses, either regular sunglasses or prescription sunglasses.

Lens Mounting

Mounting lenses into rimless eyeglass frames is tricky and requires a skilled and experienced technician. Each lens must be drilled perfectly so that the frame fits snugly into the lens. Poorly mounted rimless eyeglass frames may begin to rattle, and eventually crack the lens. One advantage of buying rimless eyeglasses online at eyeglasses.com is that our labs produce very high quality rimless mountings.

Frame Construction

Rimless glasses vary in the construction of the frame and how it is attached to the lenses. Double drilled frames are much less likely to begin rattling and to loosen, but it is a more technically difficult job to mount the glasses, so you need to be sure the optical professional doing the mounting has had a lot of experience. Most rimless glasses do not have a double-drilled construction. Instead, they have a notched construction which is easier for the optical professional to make, but is more liable to loosen up over time.

Half-Rimless Eyeglasses

A half-rimless eyeglasses frame design has a rim on part of the frames eye holding a lens, and on the other part a nylon cord secures the lens in place. The rim on a half-rimless frame is most commonly on the top of the lens, although occasionally it is located on the bottom of the lens.

Author of this article: 

Mark Agnew
CEO of Eyeglasses.com, which he founded in 1999.  For over twenty years, he has educated consumers, improved their vision choices, and reduced costs in eyewear.  Mark authored The Eyeglasses Buying Guide, the most comprehensive and best-selling glasses buying guide in the world.
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