Colored contact lenses feel like a modern invention. They are not. People have been trying to change their eye color with external devices for over a century, and the story of how we got from hand-painted glass shells to FDA-registered hydrogel lenses is stranger than most people realize.
1887: The First Contact Lens Is Made of Glass
A German glassblower named F.A. Müller, working with an ophthalmologist named Adolf Fick, crafted the first contact lens in 1887. It was made of blown glass. It covered the entire front surface of the eye. It was heavy, uncomfortable, and could only be worn for a few hours at a time. It did not change eye color — it corrected vision, barely, and mostly served as a proof of concept that a lens could sit on the human eye without causing immediate damage.
A year later, in 1888, another ophthalmologist named August Müller — no relation to F.A. — created a glass lens that corrected his own severe myopia. His lens also covered the entire eye. It also fogged up constantly because glass does not allow oxygen to pass through. He wore it anyway and published a paper about the experience. The paper is considered the first clinical description of contact lens wear.
1936: Plastic Replaces Glass
For nearly fifty years, contact lenses remained glass, heavy, and impractical for daily use. In 1936, an American optometrist named William Feinbloom created the first plastic contact lens using polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) — the same material used in airplane windows. The lens was lighter than glass but still covered the entire eye and blocked all oxygen. Wearers reported discomfort after a few hours and corneal swelling was common. But PMMA lenses were the first contact lenses prescribed to patients at scale.
1948: The Corneal Lens Shrinks
Kevin Tuohy, a Californian optician, made the first lens that covered only the cornea — not the entire eye. His PMMA lens was about 11mm in diameter, roughly half the size of earlier lenses. It was more comfortable because it moved with the eye rather than anchoring on the sclera. This was the first contact lens design that a normal person could wear for a full day. It still blocked oxygen entirely, which caused long-term corneal damage in habitual wearers, but it was a massive improvement over full-eye glass shells.
1960s: Soft Hydrogel Lenses Arrive
Czech chemist Otto Wichterle invented the first soft hydrogel contact lens in 1961. He built his prototype at home using a children’s construction set and a bicycle dynamo. The material was HEMA — hydroxyethyl methacrylate — a polymer that absorbs water and becomes soft and flexible. When hydrated, the lens allowed oxygen to pass through the material and reach the cornea. This was the breakthrough that made modern contact lenses possible.
Wichterle’s invention caught the attention of Bausch & Lomb, who licensed the technology and released the first commercially available soft contact lenses in 1971. These lenses were clear. Color would not arrive for another decade.
1980s: The First Colored Contacts Appear
The first colored contact lenses were introduced in the early 1980s. They used a simple tint applied to the surface of a standard hydrogel lens. The tint was transparent enough to let the natural iris color show through, which worked well on light eyes and barely showed on dark eyes. The surface-applied pigment sometimes flaked off over time, irritating wearers. The lenses were an aesthetic breakthrough but not yet a medical-grade product.
1990s-2000s: Sandwich Technology and Mass Adoption
The 1990s introduced the sandwich construction that is now standard in quality colored contacts. Instead of printing pigment on the lens surface, manufacturers molded a pigment layer between two layers of clear hydrogel. The color was sealed inside the lens, never touching the eye or eyelid. This eliminated the pigment flaking problem and made colored contacts as safe as clear lenses from the same material.
The 2000s brought circle lenses from Asian markets to the West, popularizing the 14.5mm diameter and enlargement effect. The FDA tightened its regulation of colored contacts in 2005, classifying all contact lenses as Class II medical devices regardless of whether they corrected vision. The days of buying non-prescription colored contacts at mall kiosks began to end.
Today: HEMA+NVP, 38% Water, FDA Standards
Modern colored contacts use HEMA+NVP copolymer — the evolutionary descendant of Wichterle’s original HEMA formula, improved with N-vinyl pyrrolidone for better water retention and oxygen permeability. The 38% water content is a deliberate design choice: high enough for comfort, low enough to resist rapid dehydration. The 14.5mm diameter is the most common size for colored lenses because it balances natural appearance with the enlargement effect that people want from cosmetic lenses.
Manufacturing happens in cleanroom facilities that look more like semiconductor plants than cosmetic factories. Every batch is tested for diameter, base curve, optical clarity, edge quality, and pigment layer integrity. Each lens carries a lot number printed on the blister pack for full traceability back to its manufacturing batch.
From a glassblower in 1887 to an FDA-registered production line today, the contact lens has traveled a path from experimental curiosity to regulated medical device. The colored contact lens is simply the latest chapter — one where the same material science that corrects vision also changes eye color, safely, for millions of people. Browse lenses built on this history.