Different Eyeglass Frames
Different eyeglass frame materials greatly expand your options for a new look. While shopping for new eyeglasses or sunglasses, ask your optician for advice about variety in colors, durability, lightness, favorite brands, hypoallergenic materials, uniqueness and price. In fact, finding eyeglasses with the qualities that are most important to you could be as simple as choosing the right frames material, because each type has its own unique strengths.
Plastic If you want the colors of the rainbow, then xylonite, or cellulose acetate is your material. They are very cost-effective and creative option for eyewear and are extremely lightweight. Particularly popular right now are laminated zyl frames that have layered colors. Look for light colors on the interior sides, which can make your eyewear “disappear” from your visual field when you wear them. An all-black frame, on the other hand, is visible at all times on both interior and exterior sides. Some manufacturers also use cellulose acetate propionate, a nylon-based plastic that is hypoallergenic. It’s lightweight and has more transparency and gloss than other plastics. If your main criterion for a frame is lightness, then definitely consider propionate frames. Eyeglasses made of nylon first were introduced in the late 1940s. Because of brittleness and other problems, eyeglass manufacturers switched to blended nylon (polyamides, co-polyamides and gliamides). Today’s blended nylon frames are both strong and lightweight. Plastic frames do have some drawbacks. They are easier to break than metal frames, they will burn (but are not easily ignited), and aging and exposure to sunlight decrease their strength slightly. Color can fade over time, but not as much with modern materials. 
Metal Monel — a mixture of any of a broad range of metals — is the most widely used material in the manufacture of eyeglass frames. It is malleable and corrosion-resistant, especially if the right kind of plating, such as palladium or other nickel-free options, is used. Many frame manufacturers offer titanium and beta-titanium material styles these days; titanium is a silver-gray metal that’s lightweight, durable, strong and corrosion-resistant. It has been used for everything from the Gemini and Apollo space capsules to medical implants such as heart valves.
Titanium glasses can be produced in a variety of colors for a clean, modern look with a hint of color. And they’re hypoallergenic. Some titanium frames are made from an alloy that is a combination of titanium and other metals, such as nickel or copper. In general, titanium alloy frames cost less than 100 percent titanium frames.
