#pinkicon

Hello everyone! I hope your January was good and that your 2017 got off to a great start! Mine was okay, but I feel like I've done nothing since I'm still on summer break, haha. Anyway, today I'm going to be my first circle lenses review in a long time! The last review I posted on circle lenses was about 1.5 years ago 😱

The lenses I'm reviewing today are the O-Lens Russian Velvet Brown, which I purchased from Pinkicon!

O-Lens is a pretty well-known Korean circle lenses brand, although they're still not as accessible as other circle lens brands like GEO, for example. You might have heard of them because EXID's Hani has been their model for a while now.  Pinkicon is a circle lens store which is based in Hong Kong, and I've purchased from them quite a few times. They stock a lot more 'unknown' brands of lenses, including Korean and Japanese brands such as O-Lens, Pienage, Heroine Make, as well as the more common brands like GEO and Dueba. The really cool thing is that they have free worldwide shipping on most of their lenses!

DISCLAIMER: I purchased the mentioned products independently and I am not being compensated for this review. I am not affiliated with O-Lens or Pinkicon, and all opinions are my own.

ABOUT THE LENSES

First, I just want to talk a little bit about these lenses and why I chose them.

The Russian Velvet line is a fairly new product line from O-Lens, and as well as Brown, they’re also available in Grey and Blue. The thing that really struck me about these circle lenses is that they looked super bright, even on dark eyes. 

Maybe it was just the styling of the model. but the lenses really reminded me of the Ice Cream Cake concept from Red Velvet!

These are monthly lenses that are sold in boxes only, with 2 lenses per box. Unforunately, that means if you have a different prescription for each eye, like me, you’ll need to buy two boxes 😕

Here’s a summary of all the details:

O-LENS RUSSIAN VELVET

Colours: Brown, Grey, Blue Duration: Monthly, 2 pieces per box Prescription: 0.00 to -8.00 Base curve: 8.6mm Diameter: 14.0mm / Graphic diameter: 12.7mm

PHOTOS + DETAILS

My order came in one of those yellow bubble mailers, and the shipping was so fast. I ordered on December 30th, and they were shipped out on January 4th, so about 4 business days for processing. I just chose the free option for shipping, Hong Kong iMail, and the estimated time was 20 to 35 business days to New Zealand. The package actually came on January 11th, which is only 5 business days from the shipment date! I was really pleasantly surprised ☺️

Here is the contents of the mailer. As well as the lenses I ordered, which were wrapped in bubble wrap, there were two free lens cases as well as the order receipt and a care manual.

Here is what the box looks like! As I mentioned earlier, I had to get two boxes because you can only get two pieces of the same prescription in each box, and my eyes have different prescriptions.

Here are what the lens packaging looks like. These are peel-open capsules, and the foil wrapper also has the information for each lens. 

Here is what the lens looks like once taken out. As you can see, it’s super, super light and almost transparent! At first, I was kind of worried because I wasn’t sure if it was going to show up on my eye properly.

TRY-ON + FIRST IMPRESSIONS

As you can see from these pictures, the colour is a lot brighter than my natural eye colour and the size is almost the same as my pupil. These are really natural looking for circle lenses, and most people couldn’t tell that I was wearing anything. 

To be honest, they’re actually a bit lighter than this in real life and I thought they looked a bit spooky when worn without make-up at first. Unfortunately, it was really hard to capture the true colour with my camera, but the last picture is pretty colour-accurate! 😖

They were really easy to put on since they are quite soft - usually the shorter the duration, the softer the lens - and I really liked them at first. I think one of the cons with how soft they are is that they damage quite easily though. I think I may have scratched the lens for my left eye at some point because after the first week, it was super irritating to put in so I’ve had to throw it out and use the other one and it has been fine so far.

Here are some selcas of me wearing these circle lenses! I would say the right half on the second picture is the most accurate colour to real life! 💕

OVERVIEW + THOUGHTS

O-LENS RUSSIAN VELVET BROWN: 4 / 5

Enlargement: 1 / 5 These are really natural looking circle lenses, and the englargement is very minimal since the graphic diameter is pretty small and there’s no limbal ring. I would definitely recommend these if you want a natural lens with a bit of ‘pop’ but these aren’t the best for huge dolly eyes.

Comfort: 4 / 5 These aren’t quite as comfortable as some other lenses I own, even from O-Lens but it’s not too bad. They do feel quite dry after 6 hours and on one occasion where I had to wear them for 10 hours (I was dumb and forgot to bring my glasses when I had to gym before work), it was super sore even with eyedrops.  Another thing I had with thes lenses is that the left one became really uncomfortable suddenly, just after a week of wearing. I’m pretty sure I might have scratched the lens, or something along those lines, but that kinda thing hasn’t happened to me even after years of weekly lenses that are much more delicate. It’s just a slight annoyance since I didn’t even get half the wear time out of these that I wanted to, so it’s basically $16 gone 😞

Colour and design: 5 / 5 I really enjoy the colour of these! The light brown shows up quite well on my eyes and it has a kind of ‘ethereal’ look, although I think if you have light brown eyes already, it’ll just look the same on you? 

Overall, I really do like these circle lenses and I would recommend them if you’re looking for a different kind of natural circle lenses that pops even on darker eyes. I’m not sure if I would repurchase to be honest, since $16 per month is kinda pricey when my other O-Lens lenses, the Jenith 3 Colour Natural Gray, are $26 for 6 months. I might still try the Blue lenses from the Russian Velvet line still, but I don’t think they’ll be my go-to lenses, even though I do like them, just because of the cost. 

PINKICON: 5 / 5

Shipping: 5 / 5 Their shipping was extremely fast, and I’m pretty happy about that. The specific dates are outlined earlier in this post, but the processing time took 4 business days and the actual shipping time was 5 business days. I’m even more impressed with this since I ordered just after Christmas and the postal service and a lot of businesses are still really backed up at this time.

Communication: 5 / 5 Some people asked me if their customer service is good, and the only experience I’ve had with the customer service is from over 2 years ago now. I had ordered the GEO Honey Gray lenses in two different prescriptions, but when I received the order, I got them both in the same prescription. I messaged them about it with a photo of the vials and they got back to me ASAP and sent out a new package with the correct prescription for my other eye, so I was pretty happy with that.

I’ve shopped with Pinkicon many times before and I’m really happy with their site and service in general! I’d definitely purchase from them again, especially since the shipping is so much faster now for some reason.

Thank you so much for reading my review today! I hope you enjoyed it ;u; A lot of you have asked me about the Etude House products I’ve shown on Instagram recently, and thanks for your interest!! I’m currently working on those reviews, but it’s been hard since my skin has been terrible for the past week and I didn’t feel up to taking photos with how bad the texture was 😭 Things are relatively back to normal now, and I should have those reviews up soon❣