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For most of my adult life I’ve worn premium sunglasses. Everything from Oakley’s to Maui Jims and even brand such as Giorgio Armani to protect my eyes and look good doing it. The problem with most premium brands are they are overpriced, difficult to get repaired, and have poor customer service (20 years ago I used Oakley Customer Service and had a good experience each time). Over the last five or ten years I’ve gotten to the point I no longer want to pay those premiums and worry about losing or breaking them. With that in mind, I kept lowering the price I was willing to pay until I hit the price $25 to $50 price range. During that time I wasn’t happy with the options out there. The cheapies and even the more expensive no name brands found on Amazon had poor quality builds, lacking in durability, and the polarized lens were of poor quality. During a hiking trip to Tyler State Park it was overcast and raining most of the day. My wife and I had a lot of issues in the woods. My Oakley’s with the grey lens (I broke down and bought an expensive pair) and my wife’s Maui Jims were too dark. After some research we decided to give Shady Rays Polarized Sunglasses a try. Today’s review is my 6 + month usage review of the Shady Rays’ Classic Timber Amber Woods Polarized Sunglasses .
Why are Sunglass Important? Why Premium and not Cheapies?
I won’t go into details or even get the science right but your eye doctor will tell you need to protect your eyes. If you are fair skinned and blue/green eyed you need to protect them even more. The sun is damaging (UV rays) and over time the sun will damage your vision and age your eyes faster. The brightness and glare of the sun causes headaches, glare causes you to miss things, and in general difficult to see what’s in front of you.
Not all sunglasses are created equal. You get what you pay for (some premium fashion brands are made cheaply and mark them up because of their name). Cheap dollar store, 10 or less no name gas station glasses, and cheap knock off junk from Amazon may look and even have some built quality to them. But their lens quality may suck. They may not be optically correct (think stretches things like a fun house mirror) and their polarized/coated lens may be of cheap quality. Plus many of them may not be UV blockers. When it comes to premium sunglasses, you premium built sunglasses with premium quality lenses that have the best optics on the market (depending on the brand).
Shady Rays – An Alternative to Over Priced Premium Sunglasses
“Our problem with sunglasses for years had been trying to find a pair that can keep up while we’re outside running, hiking, working, in the waves, you name it – but we didn’t want to wear sunglasses that cost hundreds of dollars and risk breaking, scratching, or losing them. At that price, we didn’t even want to risk getting them dirty…
That’s why we built Shady Rays.
Quality, Polarized shades that feature Free Replacements* if Lost or Broken to give people (including us!) great shades that you’ll never have to worry about breaking or losing because no matter what happens, if you come home without your perfect shades, we’ve got you with a new pair in a few days. We are proud to be an Independent, American-Owned Sunglasses company that can do things our way.” – Chris Ratterman, Founder and CEO of Shady Ray
Shady Rays have an awesome warranty and their warranty policy is almost nonexistent in the sunglass industry. The sunglasses are backed by a Lifetime Craftsmanship Warranty and Free Replacements if Lost or Broken. Gotta love it…. Guaranteed For Life.
“If you lose, damage, or break your shades, visit warranty.shadyrays.com to request a new, free pair through our warranty program. There is a processing fee of $8.89 for US replacements and $17.99 for International for each replacement. Purchased pairs may be replaced up to twice under the Lost/Broken Replacement Warranty. Original purchase must be verified by a team member for all manual replacement requests.” – Lost & Broken Warranty Page current as of 07.07.2021. For a complete policy for lost and broken sunglasses and other products please check out the warranty page.
Manufacture/Craftsmanship Defects
“If your shades ever have an issue that is our fault such as a manufacturing defect or a problem that should not occur with normal use, we will replace your pair at absolutely no cost to you. There are no limits as to how many times a pair can be replaced under this warranty because we want to do everything that we can to make any craftsmanship issue right. This relates to all shades, snow goggles, and blue light glasses.” – Lost & Broken Warranty Page current as of 07.07.2021. For a complete policy for lost and broken sunglasses and other products please check out the warranty page.
Len Tint Information
” There are two important things to know about your lenses – the VLT, and the tint color. VLT refers to the amount of light that reaches your eyes through your lenses and is measured as a percentage. The lower that percentage, the darker the lens! For example, at Shady Rays, most of our lenses fall between 8% and 18% VLT. That means most of our shades block between 92% and 82% of the light that passes through the lens.” – Lens Tint Information
Shady Rays Shady Rays Classic Timber Amber Woods Polarized Sunglasses – The Review
In early 2020 my wife and I started spending more time outdoors. We mostly do hiking and try and take trips that are 3 or 4 hours away to explore different parts of the state or neighboring states. On one of our trips to Broken Bow it was overcast and dark under the trees. But the glare was bad so we had to wear our sunglasses. Of course our sunglasses are too dark for that type of weather.
We did some research and decided that we wanted spend $50 to $70 for a good pair of Sunglasses. After high school and through most of my college days I worked for a high end sunglass shop at the mall and was familiar with both low end premium and high end sunglasses. That experience gave me the knowledge of what to look for in a good pair of sunglasses.
Those requirements were and still are…
- Lenses must be optically correct and no defects in the lens coatings
- If possible, a good quality polarized lens
- Durable and a good build quality
- Comfortable
- Light and dark lens options
- A good warranty/good customer service team
After looking for endless hours on Amazon and finding a ton of fake reviews for brands that looked like they might have some potential, we decided to bump up our price and look at some of the brands I’ve owned in the past and just pay a little extra. During that research I started seeing ads for Shady Rays on Facebook and Instagram. For the most part the comments were positive. Most of the complaints were how long it took to ship. The small complaints about defects or quality issues were dealt with by social media staff asking to speak with them directly or contacting support so they work with them on their concerns.
I started looking for reviews online for Shady Rays and I only found a few small reviews and they were positive. But I couldn’t find much information about their lenses. So on a holiday weekend I sent out a message on their Facebook page. Within an hour we were talking back and forth! They were able to answer our questions and point us in the right direction for a lens that might work for us.
Unboxing and First Impressions
We ended up purchasing the Shady Rays Classic Timber Amber Woods Polarized Sunglasses, a hard case, and the Tortoise Polarized Sunglasses for my wife. They did take a few weeks longer than expected to arrive. But they arrived in a nicely packed box that protected the sunglasses. The package wasn’t anything special. Just a cardboard box with some bubble wrap to protect one pair and the other was in the hard case. The package was cheap and saves it customers money. I’d rather have boring packaging then expensive packaging I’m going to throw away. So why pay for it?
As to the sunglasses, I found them to be built well. The hinges were tight, the glasses sat level ( geometry off so it sits funny on your face), the lenses were sung in the frame and they looked good, and the frames were looked awesome. There was no delamination or imperfections in the simulated wood grain. Just seeing these sitting on the table, had me impressed.
Wear and Tear
I’ve been rough on these guys and have yet to scratch them up or break them. I haven’t stretched them out. I wear these guys at the beach, hiking all day, at the pool, working in the yard/tractor work, and driving all day. They are comfortable to wear and they stay on my face. The fit is perfect for my needs.
The Lens
I love the lenses but sometimes they are too dark and at other times not dark enough. For my low light hiking adventures they are still too dark. We found out on a recent trip where we were deep in the woods of south east Texas in the Big Thicket National Forest when the sun went behind the dark clouds for about an hour. Both my wife and I had to take off our glasses and walk. Fortunately their wasn’t much glare. While at the pool one afternoon the sun was at the right angle the glare was bouncing off the white plaster and water making the sun just too bright to deal with. So we spent a lot of the time facing away from the sun. We can deal with low light issues but I think for my next pair I will try a darker lens.
The lenses also do not have an anti-reflective coating on the back of the lens. I’m not a big fan of these coating but they do help when the sun is coming in from the side and bouncing light off the back of your lens and into your eyes. I mainly don’t like the coating because it’s difficult to keep clean. I have to keep lens cleaning solution and a clean body oil free micro fiber cloth handy to clean them constantly. Without the coating I keep my lenses clean and when they are needing a cleaning only takes about a minute to clean the smudges up.
Final Thoughts, Recommendations, and Referral Code
Originally the plan was to wear my Shady Rays Classic Timber Amber Woods Polarized Sunglasses while hiking on gloomy days. But that changed almost instantly. Within a week or two I was wearing them daily. I haven’t worn my Oakleys in almost a year. I wear these glasses everywhere. Just the other day I wore them at the lake and spent about 4+ hours in the water and didn’t worry once about losing them.
Their quality for the price is awesome and you can’t beat their replacement policy. If I have to use their replacement/warranty program I will update this review.
Interested in getting a pair? Not ready to pay the listed price? Why not use my one time only referral code. Click the link and get $15 off your first purchase. This code doesn’t work with other discount codes. Please Note: I’m not affiliated with Shady Rays, I’m just a fan. This referral code gives me credits that I can spend towards another pair of sunglasses or other products. Then I can review more products from Shady Rays. Get your discount code now!
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