Looking for safe product to apply to plastic cycling lenses/glasses that will help shed rain and water.
What have you found to be effective?
(‘Rain X’ states that it is NOT to be used on plastic lenses. True?)
This stuff work pretty well.
Go to local auto parts store and get some rain-X, same type of stuff as above (raincoat).
No RainX on plastic. Bad News Bears. The active chemical in RainX is designed to functionally create thin coating of silicone on the surface of the glass. Silicone is crazy hydrophobic, so water beads up and runs off. Not plastic surfaces. The solvents in RainX probably aren’t so great for polycarbonate and acrylics.
I’m sure there are coatings, but perhaps carefully washing your glasses and then a very thin layer of caranuba wax? If it’s thin enough, then it will fill in scratches and not affect your optics negatively. Definitely help with water beading.
I hate myself I have a bottle of rainx and only recently threw away a pair of old sunglasses lenses that I could have used to try it…
Sorry guys.
No RainX on plastic. Bad News Bears. The active chemical in RainX is designed to functionally create thin coating of silicone on the surface of the glass. Silicone is crazy hydrophobic, so water beads up and runs off. Not plastic surfaces. The solvents in RainX probably aren’t so great for polycarbonate and acrylics.
I’m sure there are coatings, but perhaps carefully washing your glasses and then a very thin layer of caranuba wax? If it’s thin enough, then it will fill in scratches and not affect your optics negatively. Definitely help with water beading.
I’ve heard others say this before and I’m wondering if there’s any data to support it. Because, I’ve used Rain-X on my Trifosi’s, same pair, for 3 years straight. Both sides. Rain beads off the outside and sweat beads off the inside. No issues. I recently put it on my Giro Attack shield. Love it.
I’ve got an old pair of Rudys that I’ll sacrifice to try… I always clean glasses with a product called “car crap”, as it’s great for that, but don’t think it repels water. I’ll try it and get back…
I can only state from a plastic perspective, rather than reality of a lifetime of glasses. Maybe my concerns are overblown. That said, I can’t support using RainX on plastic, as it’s designed for glass.
The solvents used in RainX are a few alcohols (Isopropyl and Ethanol, IIRC), and an acid to keep the siloxanols stabilized. I am not keen on using said solvents on plastics, as hardening or crazing may occur.
The active ingredient is a siloxane; silicon-hydroxyl terminated on one side and long carbon chain on the other side. It reads like this is mixed with silicone oil.
You won’t get the chemical binding of the silicone products on plastic, as there aren’t likely to be sites for the siloxane to react. That said, the alcohols will flash off and the silicone oil will be left as a thin coating, which will do well to make the surface hydrophobic (bead up water). Probably does well to fill in small scratches, too.
Now, ethanol does a great job of cleaning crap off the lens surface, but comes with some risks.
I’d much rather wash my glasses with a tiny bit of soapy water than use any solvents. I have some many-year-old glasses that bead water like crazy, and I’m quite confident they’re just simple polycarbonate or acrylic lenses. The plastic itself is quite hydrophobic, quite unlike a hydroxyl-terminated glass surface.
I have good luck with liquid carnuba wax. I use it on the face of my Garmin 500 and the face shield on my aero helmet. This is primarily for not letting sweat stick but the high surface tension attributes are the same for rain. This gives better results than Rain X (which I have a large bottle of still).
I will say that after riding in the rain for many years in Portland, no glasses is often better than with.
I imagine there are also dedicated products for ski goggles and motorcycle applications but I’ve not looked for them.