Analysis of the Quality of Sunglasses in the Brazilian Market in Terms of Ultraviolet Protection

The Ophthalmic Instrumentation Laboratory (LIO) from the University of Sao Paulo—Brazil, was involved in research about sunglasses and its standards, and has already contributed for changing parameters in the previous Brazilian sunglasses standard. According to the standard used in Brazil, depending on luminous spectral transmittance, lenses are classified into different categories and for each category there is a required UV protection. In this work, we evaluated the UV protection of a representative sample of the sunglasses available in the Brazilian market. Most of the 231 samples were from unbranded sunglasses, and all of the samples had the same conditions as if they were sold to costumers in the informal market. In our analysis, all the branded samples were approved in the UV protection test, and by buying lighter color sunglasses (categories 1 and 2), the costumer might be more subjected to find a unbranded sunglasses that don’t have UV protection.