Why Wood Sunglasses?

Why wear wood sunglasses? Why not be a little different? Like many things, stylish sunglasses designs that are durable and comfortable can be made just as readily by a skilled craftsman out of wood. Choose wood because it's not like anything else. It's got character, just like you. 

It starts out by selecting the right kind of wood. Lani Shades isn't the only brand of wood sunglasses, but one of the things that sets us apart is that we only use certain types of wood, for a reason. The wood types we use in our collection meets our quality standards for durability and sustainability. Also because we spend a lot of time on the water, our sunglasses have to pass a float test. Wood sunglasses naturally float, right? Not all wood sunglasses but ours do. So they can get wet? Of course, plants need water. Lani Shades bamboo and wood framed sunglasses are treated with a coating to help keep their appearance if they go swimming with you or they end up floating in the ocean for a long time. They might just get a little salty, just like you.

 

Lani Shades core collection is the Lani Ohe Collection: "Ohe" is bamboo in Hawaiian. We love bamboo because it's most sustainable. In fact bamboo is not even really wood, it's a type of grass. It grows fast and is native to many habitats around the world. There's a well established industry of making countless quality things out of bamboo so why not sunglasses? Sunglasses made of bamboo are particularly lightweight and durable. Bamboo by its structure is also the most buoyant so it's perfect for making things that float. If you don't like the natural "bamboo" look it's easy to dye so it might look a little like the plastic sunglasses you might otherwise wear. It's not obvious that you're wearing bamboo sunglasses if they're durably dyed black, blue or brown. Over time if the dye fades a little it looks really cool too, like a well worn pair of jeans.

In addition to bamboo, Lani Shades also offers the Lanikai Collection which is made of skateboard wood. It's called that because they're made the same way that skateboard decks are made, in layers of different colored maple hardwood. The process of making skateboard wood involves pressing the layers together in a way that makes them especially strong, while keeping the material lightweight and buoyant. The Lanikai collection of wood sunglasses is named after one of our favorite beaches on Oahu. This is our special premium collection because the process of making skateboard wood is more complex and results in the highest strength of material.

If you've been following us for awhile you might've noticed that we previously had other types of wood in our collection. We tried a few other types of wood for our sunglasses but found that they didn't meet our standards for durability, sustainability or pass our rigorous float test in the waters of Hawaii. If you still have some of those originals, keep them they're classics. From now on though we're going to stick to bamboo and skateboard wood sunglasses for all the right reasons.