Coloured Contacts’ Non-Prescription Colored Contact Lenses

Colored contact lenses (also referred to as decorative or costume contact lenses) can transform a basic Halloween costume into a frightening one. But there’s a real-life horror story that can come with these products.

According to the FDA, which regulates contact lenses as medical devices, wearing any kind of contact lenses, including colored ones, can cause serious damage to the eyes if the lenses are obtained without a prescription or not used correctly. These risks can range from scratches or cuts on the cornea (the outer layer of the eye) to allergic reactions to infection and blindness.

That’s why the agency requires that all contact lenses – including those that do not correct vision – be prescribed by a doctor and states that anyone who sells contact lenses without a valid prescription is violating the law.

But that hasn’t stopped numerous online sellers of non-prescription contact lenses.

Until recently, Coloured Contacts, a U.K.-based online retailer of “Halloween contact lenses,” made its colored contact lenses available for purchase to U.S. consumers without a prescription so long as shoppers clicked a tab agreeing that they “should consult an optician/eye doctor prior to using these lenses.”

Then, within hours of TINA.org reaching out to Coloured Contacts for comment on its findings, the company added a message to its website stating that it is “Unable to Fulfil Orders to the United States” (see before and after). TINA.org confirmed that the site is not currently taking U.S. orders even as it continues to advertise “Ultra Fast USA Delivery” with next-day shipping.

In addition, Coloured Contacts claims in Google search results and on its website that its colored contact lenses are “FDA approved.”

Yet searching the FDA’s online medical device database for “Coloured Contacts” yields no results for the company’s products, suggesting that the company hasn’t even registered its contact lenses with the agency, much less gotten its approval.

The bottom line

If you are thinking about buying colored contacts to add a scare factor to your Halloween costume this year, know the risks. As the FDA puts it:

Even though there are a lot of products that you can buy without a prescription, contact lenses are not one of them.

Find more of our coverage on Halloween.