There are four types of coloured contact lenses:

• Visibility tints- usually a light blue or green tint added to a lens, solely to help you see it better during insertion and removal-or if you drop it. It does not affect eye colour.
  
• Enhancement tints- are a solid (but translucent) tint that is a bit darker than a visibility tint and does affect eye colour. It enhances the existing colour of your eyes. They are best used by people who have light coloured eyes.
  
• Opaque colour tints- they are deeper, opaque tints that dramatically change your eye colour. They are also suitable for dark coloured eyes.
  
• Light filtering tints- they are a more recent development. They are designed for sports use to enhance certain colours i.e. in tennis and golf the ball would stand out against the background and would be easier to target.

Many of these lenses are available in plano form (without visual correction).