Every pair of contact lenses I had ordered since discovering the website Uniqso 1.5 years ago. From top to bottom: I CODI blue sky (bad pair), Barbie puffy violet, Dolly Pink (could of left me blind), I CODI moonlight, and Barbie Pearl Black.
*I have pulled my sponsorship from the circle lens company UNIQSO. Please read on below (I tried to keep it as short and sweet as I could) and really decided if you want to buy from this company after reading what I went through (spoiler alert: The answer is NO, you are welcome). *
Bad Lenses #1- Dolly Eye Pink
In February of 2015, I bought pink circle lenses from UNIQSO, here is my review of them. Shortly after my review, these lenses burned when I put them in one day, I had owned them for less than three weeks. I made up every excuse as to why they burned:
“I have particles in my eye”
“Did I scratch the lenses? Nope, I’m having an “off” day”
“These lenses aren’t defective, a company so popular and widely known can’t do me wrong”
and etc….I was basically naive and in denial. After spending the money on them and waiting 1 month for them to arrive, I decided to give them one more try (I shouldn’t have).
These lenses can’t possibly be bad after burning my eyeballs. After all, just look at these FDA certificates in microscopic print at the VERY BOTTOM of their site….
…and when you google map their location using their address posted on their website, their building is not street viewable (their street view is replaced with product photos), and the street’s near it are blurred. So who knows what that building is…
I wore the lenses two days later with no burn when I put them in. I wore the lenses for 8 hours then washed my hands, took the lenses out, put them in solution etc. and went to bed, I did everything right. I want to mention I had worn regular prescription contacts for 1 year and circle lenses for 1.5 years with no issues when this incident occurred. When I woke up at 7am the next day, my eyes were in SO MUCH PAIN, I could not open them for two hours after I woke up (I was suffering from photophobia, known as the extreme sensitivity to light). I could open my eyes in a nearly-dark room, but all light (sunlight, fluorescent light, low light etc.) hurt and made me squint/shut them completely. I had art class at 8am, so I basically walked blind to the art building because I knew where it was. When I tried to open my eyes, I kept my head down and tried to stare at the sidewalk which I could only see on and off for half a second. I was able to cross street’s to my art building thanks to cross walk signals for blind students (they beep when it is time to walk across the street so they know it’s safe to cross).
This is an example (around the 1 minute mark) of how I was able to cross street’s to my college classes using audible crosswalks the morning my uniqso lenses temporarily blinded me.
I sat in class (we had art critique), so luckily I was not called on to present that day. My teacher looked at me funny but never said anything, I stared at the table I sat at the entire class period (the class lasted two hours), and by the end of class I was able to fully open my eyes, but they were still pretty sensitive. It didn’t matter how many eye drops I put in my eyes, nothing worked until my eyes healed on their own.
I did not wear contact lenses for 1 month after that incident. I emailed Uniqso about the bad pair of pink lenses.
Please click on the screen shots of each email to read them better if you need to!
My email to Uniqso explaining about the lenses…
…and their response
I emailed this photo to Uniqso and was mailed a replacement pair which had no issues afterward, but I was never able to bring those pink lenses to an eye doctor to examine. If anybody wants to guess why they wanted me to cut my lenses in half (maybe to make sure they were properly destroyed?), comment! Anyway…
I was 100 miles from my regular optometrist while I was attending college, and didn’t want to make time to find an eye doctor where I went to school, pay out of pocket near the end of school for special appointments, try and get to the optometrists office if I had issues etc. because I was hoping my eye’s were going to heal themselves, which they did (thank god!). I also wanted to bring my defective pink lenses to an optometrist to have them examined, but I found out later on there is no machine in the state of North Carolina (where I currently live) that could examine to see what the lenses were made of, like toxic plastic etc. I think whatever was made to create the pink color in the lenses irritated my eyes. That event was terrifying so I waited until that summer to order another pair of lenses. I should of completely stopped ordering from the company but I thought it was going to be a “one time thing”. I decided to order a natural looking pair of lenses from a completely different series.
Bad Lenses #2- I-CODI blue sky
4 months later I ordered a pair of blue sky lenses from the I-CODI series, my review of them is here, and as you can read there it was my second bad pair in a row from them.
My left lens was colored unevenly compared to my right lens…
I wondered if I had worn the left lens inside out on my eye, but I threw the entire pair away right after putting them in and taking photos for my review of them, there’s no way of knowing.
…so I emailed the company about it.
Click on the screen shot to really read it-sorry I can’t make it any bigger. Uniqso finally issued an apology along with new blue lenses. They told me they were going to send me a free pair of lenses, but I think they should of added that in with my pink pair (dealing with the pink pair was much more serious and painful).
When the lenses arrived, the package felt lighter than usual- they had only mailed me one lens (the left eye). I had thrown out the entire pair and misread that Uniqso was only emailing me one lens, not a pair…they also did not include the free random pair of lenses. After this miscommunication, I emailed them again.
More emailing and waiting…
…and apparently they forgot they even mentioned a free pair…? Why would you need MY proof on what YOU (the company) said?!
….my response. By this time I had had it.
LOOK IT’S LIKE I’M SCREAMING
Blue sky lenses and Barbie pearl black 🙂
Uniqso eventually mailed out a pair of the blue sky lenses and told me I could choose any pair of lenses from the barbie lens series for free. My review of the black lenses are here. There were no issues with either of those new lenses, but getting safe contacts from this company in the end was a struggle and downright scary. I waited until the end of the year for my yearly eye check up with my optometrist to tell him about the pink lenses. After receiving bad pink and blue lenses, I wore the pairs I had from uniqso very sparingly after that, maybe 2-3 times a week for a few hours. I have had no issues with my other lenses but half my lenses from this company were BAD.
Optometrist Appointment
*Semi Graphic Photos Included*
My eyes were healthy at the screening (go me!). At the end of the year I mentioned my pink lenses to my optometrist. My optometrist guessed if my lenses were from China, but I guessed South Korea since they have Korean certificates on their website. When I told my eye doctor the lenses were pink, he had told me the pink (whatever the pink was or whatever was done to make the lenses pink) in my lenses had aggravated my cornea’s, just like I had suspected. If my cornea’s had been scratched by the lenses and then infected, I would of gone blind in the most extreme case.
Uniqso’s lenses aggravated my Cornea- Credit
What could of happened to me: Semi-graphic photo of a scratched cornea (also known as a Corneal Abrasion).
Credit
My optometrist see’s plenty of Asian patients (especially Chinese) who have scarred eyes thanks to wearing unregulated FDA lenses that are manufactured in their country. Many Asian patients with trauma to their eyes want to wear prescription contacts, but the damage has already been done to their eyes. They are stuck wearing glasses and having permanently bad eyesight. I paid extra, out of pocket money that was not covered by my insurance for corneal scans to insure the health of my eyes. I sure as hell would not ask a company like Uniqso to cover my bill after seeing what Youtuber Cristina went through getting Eyecandy’s to pay for her damaged eyes thanks to her defective lenses, her story is here while I touch on a little bit of it down below.
I could not take photos of my eye scans but at least I can show you my pretty little bill and eye specialist diagrams…
What my out of pocket exam was. Credit to a youtube video still I added onto.
Look, mom! Forget socks, I gave myself the gift of corneal scans for Christmas, ho ho ho- FUCK!
I photoshopped my insurance provider out on this bill and didn’t bother photoshopping out the word “total” since you can’t see it. I was going to photoshop out the amount’s but it’s all done and paid for…
Aftermath (settling with Uniqso)
I titled this part “Aftermath” like I’m some warrior gladiator, all dramatic but that’s just what popped into my head, haha! Anyway…after all of this bullshit I was put through the entire year of 2015 from waiting, to receiving, then emailing, then finally testing (with oodles of anxiety and tears thrown in)…what did I do? I sent a final email to Uniqso asking them to pull my affiliate code (I called it a sponsorship) and detailing them to what happened during my eye appointment (like my photophobia, blindness etc. ya know, all normal).
My last email to the company…
…followed by the quickest “We don’t give a shit” reply from a company I have ever received thus far (it took them a whole 4 minutes to reply to my email).
Uniqso deleted my account from their site (I deleted what used to be my email and password from the “returning customer” section after I received the above message if that makes sense. It made me feel better knowing none of it was there when I took this screen shot.
Uniqso’s reply basically summed up in GIFs
Some of my friends told me their response to me was “rude”, or it was just a “language barrier issue”. “Language barrier” my ass! They fully understand what they are doing and do not care, they are a business!! There are so many sponsored people ( I won’t name them) and young consumers whose reviews I have read gushing over how nice they are to them along with fast shipping etc. These companies are nice to these followers because they have nice faces (just saying, no beef directed towards them), who have a huge and impressionable following etc. I do not have emails back to when I joined Uniqso’s affiliate program, but they were nothing like how they treated me in the above emails. When I joined, they complimented me on my makeup in the photos (aka sucking up, kissing ass etc.), seemed to respond faster than usual when I was interested in their program (and just as fast deleting me from the affiliate program when I was disinterested in them after 1.5 years lol).
Circle lens issues continued
I would like to touch on other circle lens issues I have read while googling on this matter. Model and Blogger Alexa Ober reviewed a pair of lenses from Uniqso and was eventually treated as badly as I was as well. The lenses she reviewed were very uncomfortable in her eyes, she was blocked on their Instagram etc. You can read her blog post about it here.
Alexa Ober
I have full permission from Alexa to screen shot and post her review of Uniqso, she was very professional and understanding. I also sent her the same reply from Uniqso when I explained to them what happened to me after wearing their lenses.
Former Model and Blogger Alexa Ober- Photo Credit
A shot of Alexa’s circle lens review. Her full post with other photos are here.
A closer screen shot of just Alexa’s explanation of her overall score. The explanation is a little hard to read to me but she gets her point across.
Screen shot of Alexa explaining Uniqso’s sponsors benefits…
Alexa’s response to my email while also adding her thoughts on Uniqso’s response to me (all 4 words of it).
I have read plenty of positive reviews of Uniqso from satisfied bloggers like I was in the beginning, but when things go wrong and you want to shed light on something like this, it is refreshing to see someone that is not afraid to call people out on their antics and is overall confident in expressing their view.
Cristina Viseu
I emailed Cristina asking if I could cite her photos and blog article to use in this blog post, but she never replied. I have decided to use her photos and images because her ordeal was so serious (I was very close to becoming her case if my cornea’s had been scratched). I have credited all photos I have taken from Cristina’s various social media.
Youtuber, vlogger, and former blogger Cristina Viseu. Photo Credit (her twitter account)
Right photo: Cristina now. Middle photo: EyeCandy’s home page Left photo: Cristina’s irritated eye from wearing Eyecandy’s lenses
Cristina is a youtuber, vlogger, and former blogger. In 2010, she bought a pair of circle lenses from EyeCandy’s that resulted in very serious damage to her eyes, forcing her to drop a college class she was taking at that time, become depressed etc. but has since made a great recovery.
Cristina’s viral blog post about her circle lens ordeal. Full post is here.
Ironically I read her post while I was looking into wearing circle lenses when I was new to them. Her article scared me to death with good reason. I thought of Cristina and her viral post when I was sorting out my mess with Uniqso. Cristina is very brave for posting her entire ordeal and speaking up for herself. She also had a huge right to be mad for the shitty “customer service” the EyeCandy’s team gave her, my heart broke for her reading everything that she went through.
EDIT: 6 days after this blog post became public and over 1 week after emailing Cristina to credit her circle lens post with no response from her (no big deal, she’s a busy woman), she uploaded this video about her circle lens experience:
Conclusion
Eyesight is everything to a visual artist like me. I need my eyesight to draw and paint, do freelance makeup, and create my polymer clay jewellery. I also need my eyes to photograph, edit, and put up all the photos you see on my blog ;).
I love makeup, designing outfits, using lenses to make myself look different etc. I dodged a bullet with Uniqso and will be very choosy when I buy my lenses next time!
There ya have it! If you scrolled down this far to the end, good for you!! and I thank you for that. I have finished detailing my entire experience dealing with a circle lens company from halfway around the planet and how I could of lost my eyesight. If you want to come at me with the “Uniqso isn’t all bad” attitude, that’s cool. If you want to come at me with the “she should of known better”, or the “she had it coming” attitude when I wore my pink lenses after they burned, that’s cool too. Your opinion is your opinion, and my experience is my experience. My experience is just here for you to view. I get plenty of views for old reviews on their lenses, so why not stop by and skim/read this post? I wanted to speak up for a company I now no longer support and I wanted to back up my claims…along with posting others experiences. Please share and spread the word about my post if you feel the same way, it would mean more than anything. I hope you can see the work I put into my posts and in trying to spread this certain experience, it all comes from my heart with best interest.
❤ Thank YOU for reading ❤
PS: All photos and screen shots not rightfully owned by me are credited in their captions and down below!
Sources:
- Alexa Ober blog post and photos, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, and LOOKBOOK
- Corneal abrasion photo
- Cornea diagram photos
- Cristina Viseu blog post
- Cristina Viseu twitter profile photo
- Crosswalk for Blind video
All other photos, screen shots etc. were taken by me.
check out my work on other social media:
Second Tumblr (misc. reblogs)
Love,
The Fiend :3
apeanutbutterfiend 