The majority of sunglasses users, and therefore of the buying public, are convinced that all CE certified sunglasses are safe. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to encounter cases where glasses are manufactured according to European standards, but are not safe.

All glasses sold by optical stores meet the applicable essential health and safety requirements provided by Regulation (EU) 2016/425 and the requirements set by the harmonized standards EN ISO 12312-1:2013 and EN ISO 12312-1/A1:2015. Sunglasses sold in optical stores are categorized as medical devices and must follow strict specifications.

All sunglasses sold by optical stores come with an information note and a Declaration of Conformity as a reference to the above standards.

These specifications are not required when sunglasses are categorized as accessories. Optical shops are prohibited from selling products that do not meet the specifications mentioned above.

In a relatively recent study (Dain et al, 2010), the performance in a sample of 646 CE marked sunglasses was evaluated, based on the following factors: their refractive and prismatic power, permeability (visible, ultraviolet and different “chromaticity”) and polarization. The measurements showed that 17.3% of the glasses did not meet the required European standards (European Standard EN1836) while 3.3% met them marginally, due to uncertainty in the measurements (measurement error).

Therefore, the appearance of the CE certified mark on many sunglasses is not always synonymous with quality and practice tells us that things are much more volatile as we turn to more economical products and more “uncontrolled” manufacturers, as there are many in the Far East.