Eyeglass Frame Grips--Hinge Tighteners (pack of 10)

These tighteners really do work, but a caveat here. They are extemely hard to get on if you have Rayban's like I do. I have a new pair of Rayban Wayfarer prescription sunglasses. If it weren't for the review of "Brother in Christ" I would have given up and used rubber bands. The secret here is: soak them in hot water first for at least 10 minutes. Don't boil the water, but get it as hot as you can from the faucet and put it in a small bowl and cover it. Wait about 10 minutes and you will be surprised at how malleable they be. I had to coax them over the fat part of the Wayfarer stem, but once I got them past that, they sailed right onto the hinge. When you are placing them, hold the stem away from your body and coax the tightener along the stem. You will need a degree of patience in addition to the hot water, but believe me, if I could them onto the hinge, you can too. Another caveat, you will probably need to put 2 on each side. I had to because the Wayfarer's are a bit loose. But 2 on each side did the trick. The other good thing is that they are hard and not likely to soften and go weak on you any time soon. So far, I've not had any problems with my glasses sliding down my nose. They stay right in place and give me good protection from the sun. I highly recommend them but don't forget the hot water!

These are too fat. Since they had a slice around the circumference, I finished slicing in half all the way around. Now, they are too flimsy and get cut by when the glasses are being worn. I use to be able to buy hinge tighteners that were for this purpose (and correct SIZE) but I guess its not possible anymore.

I replaced the hanging strap for my drug store reading glasses with these rubber hinge rings. One ring on each hinge tightened up the hold on my (narrow) face. No more slipping, no more catching the glasses as they fall, and no more wrestling matches with the strap. After reading the reviews, I was anxious that the rings would be difficult to put on. I live in the NE and received the package on a cold day. Right out of the cold package, these rings simply rolled up to the hinge. I tried two rings on one hinge and changed my mind- the ring rolled off despite its tight fit. The best part is being able to put the glasses open around my neck and the hinges keep the arms tight enough to hold the glasses securely under my chin when I don't need to use the glasses. BTW, a pair of these rings come with most of the small eyeglass kits sold at the grocery or drug store check out. I used to toss them!

These hinge tightener bands work well with a frame having 1/4" wide arms. They do not work at all with frames having thinner arms. I could not find a smaller band of this type for arms that are 1/8" wide, but orthodontic elastics are available on Amazon in packs of 100 in a 1/8" size - heavy force. These are somewhat helpful for my narrow frames.

The rings are small, but letting them sit in hot water and then installing them by holding the stem with the earpiece end extended away from you and coaxing the ring towards you by using your two index fingers (fingernails), saw these rings slide over my thicker stems. An alternative to hot water is to use talcum powder which would assist in the sliding of the rings. For the largest stems, I verified that the glasses in question did not have spring-loaded hinges, and installed the ring from the hinge end by simply removing the stem with a jeweler's screw driver and placing the ring on the hinge. (If you have spring loaded hinges, do not attempt to do this unless you have the know-how, or have viewed the YouTube clips on how to re-attach a spring-loaded stem to the frame.) Because of the one size fits all, you might find that besides the difficulty in sliding the rings over the stem, there might be a situation where the ring when positioned, is not being "pinched" by the stem, when the stem if fully open. You can fine tune these however, by cutting a small, round, eraser tip-size washer out of an old bicycle tube, with a small puncture in the middle. Slide this over the stem to help work with the ring to give you adequate tightening. Because of the many variables from glasses to glasses, one might not need this amount of stem tightening from the O ring. If the rings fit, but they force the stems inward too much, it might make the glasses too tight on your head, or it might put too much stress on the nose bridge. You might try just the bicycle inner tube; again cutting a patch that is appropriate for your stem size, puncture a hole in the middle, and then slide that onto the stem. I used this technique for one pair of sunglasses that had adequate grip (but wanted a little more so as it slips during physical activity). This technique gives just the right amount of grip, while the inner tube is surprisingly inconspicuous. If you need to keep glasses from slipping, try the rings or inner tube, but also do a search under "no slip silicone nose pads." I'm waiting on a ten pack pair of those from Amazon, which hopefully when combined with the inner tube, will prevent slippage when mountain biking.

These were WAY too big for my glasses, and I can't even imagine a pair of eyeglasses where these wouldn't be too big.

Update: if you're looking for a product like this that actually works. Walmart has a little kit with 2 of these in it. It's near the reader glasses! They're small in size and stretchy... They actually do what these are intended to do and the whole kit with a screw driver and screws too is only $1.98. Photo included. Absolutely nothing like the ones people are picturing with this listing. I had to cut these giant rubber things and fanagle them around the sides of the frame. The concept is great and works well, but these pieces I received are huge and would look terrible if I left them on the frame.