I’ve been a glasses wearer since I was a child, and I’ll tell you the most annoying thing I find with it up to now: dragging myself to physical opticians and trying on mountains of frames and having an assistant watching over me. I mean, it has to be done of course. When you wear glasses, you have to have you vision checked every so often, in which I try to have mine checked every 12-24 months. But come the part where it’s choosing new frames – especially when my prescription changes – it’s usually something I put off.
Staring at myself in the mirror of a brightly lit bulb light opticians trying on various frames and getting sick of the sight of my own face us never enjoyable. The pressure of an assistant hanging over me is also equally as unenjoyable. Which is why in more recent years, I’ve been much more open to shopping my frames online.
At first I thought it was pretty impossible. They need my prescription, they need my measurements, and the main worry: how on Earth will I know if their frames look good on me? Well this is why Arlo Wolf jumped out at me, and so much so I wanted to share my recent experience with you all about their Try Before You Buy Service.
You see, there’s something about scrolling pages of frames online that I enjoy much more than traipsing around stores, with fistfuls of frames. I like to browse frames by my face shape, which tends to be a heart shape, and colour – usually always brown or grey. But even when I’ve done this before, the frames haven’t always looked as fabulous as I’d hoped. Sometimes they can look incredible online, but when they are psychically sat on my nose, it’s surprising how they can be unsuited to me, even though I genuinley loved the look of them online.
This is where Arlo Wolf have understood the frustrations of shopping for frames online, yet they know it’s something people are wanting to do. They have introduced a Try Before You Buy service, in which you can select 4 pairs of frames from their website, and you can have the arrive at your door ready to try on and see how you feel about each one…
When I started to try this service out, I selected 4 pairs of frames that suited a hart shaped/round shaped face, came in either grey or brown, and ideally were plastic as my lenses are quite thick. They arrived in a box along with a return postage label that I’d need to take to the post office, so I could try the frames on in the comfort of my home and see which ones actually suited me ‘in real life’. This is exactly the kind of service I was in need of. Why had I never looked at this before?
The first pair of frames I’ve shared above are the Jude Tortoise from Arlo Wolf, which I feel are a super trendy pair. I absolutely love these – especially the toistoise style print – but I felt that because my eyes are close set, these drew attention to that slightly more. My eyes looked even closer together than normal, so these had to go in my ‘no’ pile. If your eyes are a little further set apart, these would be a super stylish pair to own and I’d have snapped them up!
The next set of frames in this blog post are the Logan frames in olive. Now these again are a gorgeous pair of frames, however I felt they were a little large on my small face. I do have a super dinky frame, so I often struggle with frames being a little on the large side on my small face. It’s a shame, but I’d rather discover that at this stage than later down the line…
Moving on to frame number 3, we have the Saskia frames. Now these were my favourite, and I felt they looked just as good on than they did on the website. The delicate arms sat gently on my face, and they light grey marble colour didn’t look heavy or too bold. I love the classy gold finishing details on these too, and I was just genuinely happy these suited me as I fell in love with them on the website.
These are the pair of frames I decided I would go for, but of course, I had one more to try. The fourth pair was the Micah frames in brown, which similar to the Logan, they sat just a bit too large and heavy on my face.
The photo directly below is of the Saskia, which I feel definitely suit me the best, in which I felt ready to go ahead…
The price points at Arlo Wolf are super reasonable and very competitive. I have paid around £150 for frames before, and they haven’t been designer or anything like that. However the Saskia pair I decided to choose retailed at £65 – I find that an ideal price for a sleek pair of frames. Especially when you don’t run the risk of getting them and deciding that they don’t work with your face shape at all, as the Try Before You Buy completely takes that risk away.
I mean, of course you could select 4, 5 or 6 pairs of frames and realise none of them suit you, but that really is the beauty of having that opportunity. Once you’ve had your prescription lenses added to a pair of frames, along woith extras like blue light and scratch resistance coatings etc, you can’t really return them.
But this way, you’ve had the chance to try before you commit, as the trial frames that arrive come with the clear lenses just like they would if you were in a physical shop trying frames on.
If you’re a glasses wearer like me, and want to spend some time in the comfort of your home browsing frames, selecting your favourites and then having the chance to try them before buying, I’d highly recommend Arlo Wolf. I didn’t know about this service before I came across it last month, so I’m pretty excited to share it on here with you all.
I’ll be sharing my chosen Saskia frames over on my Instagram account as soon as they arrive too – so keep a look out over there!
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