Why do the manufacturers tell you to soak your lenses for 6 hours?

"6 Freaking Hours? I just waited 2 weeks for my lenses!"

Why do manufacturers of circle lenses ask you to soak your lenses in solution for 6 hours?

When contact lenses are packaged in glass vials for sale, the manufacturers put them in a preservative solution to preserve them for their wearers. In the original sterile, sealed glass vial packaging, contact lenses can be stored for up to 5 years.

Once you open the vials and take your contacts out, the seal is broken and the sterile environment is gone.

On your lenses, at least the first time you put them on, the contacts still have the preservative on/in them. Contacts absorb some of that solution into the lenses. As you have probably seen in descriptions of the contact lenses, manufacturers tell wearers what the water content % is. The preservative is water-soluble, and as such, the lenses will absorb some of it.

To avoid irritation to your eye from this preservative, you must soak your contacts for at least 6 hours.

Is the preservative toxic? Probably not-- if it were, they wouldn't use it for contact lenses. You probably won't die if you busted your lenses out of the vials and put them in right away, BUT doing so is definitely not a good idea and will sting like hell.

So, that's why!