Your guide to contact lenses at festivals

Festivals are a lot of things. Hygienic is not one of them.

If you wear monthlies, speak to your optician about switching to daily contact lenses for the weekend. No cleaning. No storing. No fishing around a dark tent at 3am looking for your solution. Fresh pair in the morning, bin them at night, done.

Pack more than you think you need. Things go wrong at festivals. Usually around 2am.

Switching to dailies and still bringing a case? Yes. A case with a splash of solution in the bottom means that if something gets into a contact, you have somewhere clean to sort it out. It weighs nothing and it can save your whole day.

Bring hand gel too. Just let it dry completely before you go anywhere near your eyes. Wet sanitiser on a fingertip is a mistake you only make once. 

Sunshine plus a drink or four does more to your eyes than you would think. Dehydration shows up fast: dry, itchy, gritty, generally miserable.

Water is the easy fix. Stick to your usual eight glasses a day and keep a bottle on you, because almost every food and drink stand on site will refill it.

For instant relief, everclear Eye Drops are built for exactly this. They re-wet contacts of all types and you can use them day or night with your lenses in. Prefer preservative-free? Blink Contacts, Systane Ultra Preservative-Free and Hycosan Extra are all safe to use with contacts in too. Whichever you pick, check the label confirms it before you use it.

Dry weather means less mud and a lot more dust. Add tens of thousands of pairs of feet to a dry field and you have grit in the air all weekend.

If something gets in your eye, the golden rule is do not rub it. Rubbing drags the particle across your eye and can scratch the surface.

Do this instead:

• Blink hard a few times and let your tears do the work.
• If that does not shift it, flush it out. An eye wash or spray does the job, and a spray like Optase Comfort goes on over closed lids, which is handy when your hands are anything but clean.
• Still uncomfortable? Take the contact out. If it is a daily, bin it and open a fresh one.
• Wear sunglasses. They are the cheapest dust shield going, and wraparound styles block grit from the sides as well.

If your eye is still sore, red or sensitive to light the next day, leave your contacts out and speak to an optician or pharmacist.

Fingers crossed for sun. Your eyes need looking after just as much as your skin does.

UV hits your eyes as hard as it hits your shoulders, so pack a decent pair of sunglasses alongside the suncream.

Some contacts offer UV protection, which helps, but it is limited and it is no replacement for proper sunglasses. Wear both and you are properly covered.

A contact lens solution travel pack keeps everything you need in one place: solution, a case and enough to see you through the weekend, without lugging a full size bottle across a field.

Festivals are hard work on your eyes. Dust, sun, long days, short nights. None of that is a reason to leave your contacts at home.

Pack dailies, pack drops, pack sunglasses, keep your hands clean, and your eyes will barely notice the difference. Then you can forget about them entirely and get on with the weekend, which is rather the point. 

Running low? Stock up on contacts and eye care essentials now, and next day delivery will get them to you before you get to the gates.