Green oil on my glasses

Delzhand

This is something I've wondered about off and on for most of my glasses-wearing life. There's a sort of greenish oil that builds up on the nosepieces of my eyeglasses. Like, inside the clear plastic part. Is this just skin oil? Bacteria? A compound in the plastic? I mean, it's not there when I get a new pair of glasses, but without fail within a year or maybe a few months, there it is.

Sometimes I can take a sturdy piece of paper like a business card and run the edge between the plastic and the tiny fixture that holds it in place and get some of it out, but I have no idea if there's a way to deep clean them without disassembling them.

wallabeeX

I always assumed it was bacteria.

Gahmrious

Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that the film is simply all of the sins commited in my life, materialized into some sort of bacteria that covers that little nose guard... I usually clean them off by soaking my glasses in some hot soapy water.

God forbid that shit ever "grows" beyond the nose pads....

Rook

You should be able to take them into an optition and get those bits replaced. I've always assumed it was a mixture of skin oil/dead skin + bacteria.

Dark Moon

Hypothesis: Most nosepads are held in place by brackets made of a cheap metal like nickel or copper. Whenever you sweat, you'll always have a fairly large buildup of sweat on the little crevice these pads sit in. As such, you'll have a great mixture of water and salt and ideal conditions for the oxidization of the metal holding the brackets in place. Oxidized nickel copper alloys would have a green-yellow colouring to them that would seem to support this hypothesis. The colouring is also only ever present on the side of the nosepad that is in contact with the metal support bracket. In addition, my own frames which are entirely plastic show only an opaque white discolouration on the nose supports after three years of constant use.

Delzhand

I took them to where I got them and they replaced them. 5 bucks, which is guess is an okay expense once a year. The lady said that there's something in the skin's oil that causes a chemical change in the plastic that seems to occur regardless of skin pH levels, diet, nationality, etc.

I'm guessing it's probably combination of that and Dark Moon's hypothesis.

DeShadowC

Delzhand wrote: »

I took them to where I got them and they replaced them. 5 bucks, which is guess is an okay expense once a year. The lady said that there's something in the skin's oil that causes a chemical change in the plastic that seems to occur regardless of skin pH levels, diet, nationality, etc.

I'm guessing it's probably combination of that and Dark Moon's hypothesis.

I always just pop them off and clean the pads and the metal pieces every 6 or so months.

radroadkill

DeShadowC wrote: »

Delzhand wrote: »

I took them to where I got them and they replaced them. 5 bucks, which is guess is an okay expense once a year. The lady said that there's something in the skin's oil that causes a chemical change in the plastic that seems to occur regardless of skin pH levels, diet, nationality, etc.

I'm guessing it's probably combination of that and Dark Moon's hypothesis.

I always just pop them off and clean the pads and the metal pieces every 6 or so months.

I do this too.

DHS Odium

I love this thread. I've been wondering this for years.

Djiem

This is one of the MANY problems I've solved by wearing contacts.

TychoCelchuuu

Dark Moon wrote: »

Hypothesis: Most nosepads are held in place by brackets made of a cheap metal like nickel or copper. Whenever you sweat, you'll always have a fairly large buildup of sweat on the little crevice these pads sit in. As such, you'll have a great mixture of water and salt and ideal conditions for the oxidization of the metal holding the brackets in place. Oxidized nickel copper alloys would have a green-yellow colouring to them that would seem to support this hypothesis. The colouring is also only ever present on the side of the nosepad that is in contact with the metal support bracket. In addition, my own frames which are entirely plastic show only an opaque white discolouration on the nose supports after three years of constant use.

That's my hypothesis too. The green stuff also shows up, albeit in smaller amounts, at the joints where the glasses fold at each side. So I figure it wasn't stuff from my face.