Do You Need a Prescription for Colored Eye Contacts?
Posted on 11. Aug, 2010 by in Colored Contacts
Yes, you do need a prescription to buy colored eye contacts in the United States. It may come as a surprise, but you even need a prescription to buy zero power colored lenses.
There had been a time when the U.S. government classified zero power or “plano” contacts as cosmetic devices and not medical devices. However, the FDA later released a consumer alert about the lenses, reporting that they “present significant risks of blindness and other eye injury if they are distributed without a prescription…”
Then a few years later, President Bush signed a law into effect, the Plano Contact Lens Law, which classified all contact lenses as medical devices. Along with this law, all contact lenses, worn for any purpose, cannot be sold without a valid contact lens prescription written by an eye doctor.
Therefore, you do need a prescription for colored contact lenses. If you see colored contacts being sold anywhere else, it is very possible that the merchant is is breaking the law.
