I have both and once they are put on the eye, they look almost identical. Outside the eye if you look closely at them, or in photos taken with a macro setting, you will notice differences but they are not important, since they look pretty similar in person.
Both lenses use the same pattern and patent, but natural touch are printed with a normal ink printer, so they original computer designed pattern shows perfectly, and elegance are printed with a special machine that imitates handpainting, so the lens looks more beautiful, with some touches and lines that look paintbrushed, and a more natural looking iris pattern.
At the beginning both brands used this handpainted-like printing machine but some years ago Natural Touch changed it, thats why now they look different and in some places they're still sold as the same. People who used to buy NT in America years ago were buying the same lens as elegance, but in 2001 they changed them and all users noticed the difference all of a sudden. Thats why Paris Hilton for example seems to be wearing Elegance in 2000 pictures and NT in 2002 pictures. actually she always wore NT but before, NT was just exactly like elegance.
The creator of this lens was called Pilkington Barnes Hind and sold the design to coopervision and ciba, each brand created a different brand name for the lens. coopervision created the natural touch brand, for america, and ciba the elegance brand, for europe. thus both brands were sold worldwide by two different brands, for loyal competence.
Nowadays if you buy both lens you'll notice these differences i've told you. but not a big deal once in the eye. also elegance has a bigger iris diameter (although the lens diameter is 13.8, littler than NT) and NT has a littler iris diameter so some big irises wouldnt be enough covered, although their lens diameter is 14.0, bigger than elegance). i mean, elegance is 13.8 but has more space painted for the lens, and NT is 14.0 but has more unused polymer, and a littler iris diameter.
NT generally has a more consistent pattern because of its calcographic printing, so its pupil opening is always the same. In elegance sometimes the pupil opening comes a bit bigger than it should, but it's not always, just sometimes. Also the colors in elegance tend to be brighter, except the gray which is lighter in NT always. But the light blue is lighter than NT baby blue, the hazel is lighter in Elegance, the light green, the dark blue are lighter in elegance and so on.
And elegance are a lot more expensive, dont know why. So maybe you wanna try NT first because of its price
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03-06-2008, 04:27 PM
How Do Natural Touch Opaque Lenses Compare to Elegance?
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