Prescription Lenses

Every Saunt frame can be fitted with prescription lenses — sunglasses and optical alike, single vision or progressive. Because each pair is edged to your prescription, these are made to order rather than bought off the page, so it starts with a conversation instead of a checkout.

Send us a request and we'll come back with lens options, pricing and a timeline for your frame.

Every lens comes in single vision — one correction across the whole lens, for distance or for reading — or progressive, with distance, reading and everything in between in one lens.

Clear — our standard optical lens.

Sun Tint — the same correction in a tinted, non-polarized lens, for prescription sunglasses.

Polarized — tinted and polarized, cutting glare off water and road. The full Saunt sunglass lens, made to your prescription.

Tints — Grey, Brown or Rose. Other tints by special request.

Mirrors — an add-on for any lens, in Light Silver, Blue Mirror or Light Bronze.

All prescription lenses carry the same anti-reflective and anti-scratch hard coatings as the rest of our range. Progressives need one extra step — see below.

We make progressives, and they need one measurement single vision doesn't: segment height.

That's where your pupil sits within the lens once the frame is actually on your face. It decides where the reading zone lands, and it can't be read off a prescription or worked out from the frame alone — we have to see you wearing it. It's the reason most online sellers avoid progressives altogether.

Here's how we get around it.

We ship you the frame with no lenses in it, and a prepaid shipping label in the box. You put it on, take three photos the way we describe, and send them over. We measure your segment height from those, then you drop the frame in the mail with the label — it goes straight to our lab, gets glazed to your prescription, and comes back to you finished.

On timing: the clock starts the day you post the frame to our lab, not the day you order. From there, expect your finished glasses back within two to three weeks.

One extra trip in the mail, and you get progressives in a Saunt frame.

A current prescription. Written by a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist, and still in date. Your eye doctor is required to give you a copy after an exam — you don't have to buy your glasses from them to get it.

Your pupillary distance (PD). The distance between the centers of your pupils, in millimeters. It isn't always printed on the prescription, but any optician can measure it, and most will do it free.

For progressives, three photos of you in the frame. Taken once the unlensed frame arrives, so we can measure segment height.

A photo of the prescription is fine. Once we've emailed you, reply with a picture — we don't need it typed out, and we'd rather you didn't send it through a web form.

1. Pick a frame. Browse the range and find the style and color you want. If you're unsure about sizing, each product page has a fit chart.

2. Send a request. Use the form below, or the Prescription & Custom Order button on any product page. Choose your lens type, tint and mirror there.

3. We'll come back to you. By email, within 24 hours Monday–Friday, with pricing and a timeline. That's when you send the prescription.

4. We build it. Frames are finished in our Encinitas workshop, and lenses are edged to your prescription.

Progressives run slightly differently. After step three the frame ships to you unlensed with a prepaid label. You send three photos wearing it, we take the segment height, and you mail the frame to our lab for glazing. Two to three weeks from the day you mail it, your finished glasses arrive.