Neon Sunglasses: Where To Buy + The Best Colors

Neon colors are pretty dang cool. Go ask anyone old enough to have fully experienced the 80s, they’ll tell you. In fact, just go ask anyone that’s just been to an 80s party. Neon is a retro trend that we hope never goes away. Thanks to goodr, you can neonify your face! In -- you guessed it! -- the form of polarized sunglasses! Why? Well, we could tell you… but it’s going to cost you the three minutes and 35 seconds it takes to read this article. Or less, if you’re a speed reader. If you are a speed reader, there will be a quiz at the end because we’re pretty sure anyone who claims to read that fast isn’t actually comprehending anything.

Neon colors are even cooler when you start digging deeper into their origins. Some of the first known observations of “neon” can be traced back to scientists observing bioluminescent organisms. In the 16th century, in Mexico, a scientist noticed a tree where the water around it had an electric-blue glow. The tree is known as kidney wood. This is now one of goodr CEO Carl the Flamingo’s, favorite vacation spots, home of the great flamingo rave of 1988.

Neon continued to develop in the mid 1880s when Heinrich Geissler, a German glassblower and physicist sealed glass tubes with two electrodes creating an electric current to make the gases within glow. What kind of gases? Flamingo farts of course! Nah, we don’t really know-- we make sunglasses not neon signs, but we definitely are big fans of neon signs.

To really get into it, let’s hop in a time machine, might as well make it a hot tub time machine, and go back to Bob Switzer’s basement in 1934. As the story goes, Switzer was working a summer job unloading crates of food for a grocery store chain in Berkeley, CA, when he fell, hitting his head on a rail and traumatically injuring his noggin. With a fractured skull and serious optic damage, Switzer had to spend time recovering in dimly-lit spaces. His dad built him a darkroom in the basement of his family’s pharmacy. Might sound a wee bit depressing, but don’t worry, this story has a bright ending, hah, corny pun intended.

To pass the time, Bob, and his brother Joe experimented with chemicals from the family’s store. Man, just think about the scientific advances that would be made if all parents let their kids mess around with chemicals in their basement... Joe was in school for chemistry and an amateur magician, a perfect combo if you ask us. As you can imagine, these kiddos had some fun in their dark dungeony lair.

The first fluorescent hue they ever saw was the result of combining eye wash and rubbing alcohol under UV light. True story. The little mad scientists decided to take this a step further by adding a white shellac to thicken it, creating essentially the first black light paint! Helllooo DayGlo! These guys got entrepreneurial and started their own business, Fluor-S-Art Co, partnering with a San Francisco artist to make cinematic posters that glow under black light. Unfortunately, their paint was only visible in the dark.

So like any good innovators, they started a NEW business, Day-Glo Color Corp. They came up with “daylight fluorescents” aka the true birth of neon colors. The military took notice and started using what we now know as blaze orange to paint aircraft in an attempt to prevent mid-air crashes.

As this technology continued to develop over the years, we can’t forget about the shift to eye-catching neon art. Where previously natural colors were all the rage, pop culture icons like Andy Warhol embraced the brightness starting with his 1966 neon pink silk-screened cow series. Some classically minded, clearly super boring folks, viewed the use of neon as, “bad taste.” We call those people L-O-S-E-R-S.

The 1980s brought neon to the masses. It was a full on color explosion! One in three Americans in the 80s were decked in neon. The color that once signaled HAZARD! Became popular in shoes, makeup, hair bows, and torn T-shirts.

So why neon sunglasses? Because they’re fucking fun. Duh. Oh, also! Fun fact! Fluorescent color is seen 75% sooner than normal boring color. Additionally, your eyes go back to admire fluorescents for a second look 59% of the time. If you’re trying to get noticed, neon is the way to go. You heard us-- update your Tinder and Bumble pics stat. We wish we could honestly tell you that wearing neon goodr sunglasses will get you the swipe to the right you’ve been waiting for, but we haven’t done any official tests. Our in-house dating app expery, account manager Rachel, can confirm based on a small sample size of personal experiments.

Here at goodr, we love color. Even though our number one selling sunglasses are our black on black, A Ginger’s Soul, (...sadly, we’ve come to accept that there are a lot of #basic people in the world), we will continue to make sunglasses that pop off of people’s faces. Nooo not literally! COME ON, you know, our sunglasses were made with runners in mind with that lightweight, stay-on-your-face-awesomeness. We mean pop-off like poppin! Like POW!

A world with everyone wearing black sunglasses would be a very boring place. Black sunglasses don’t give humans the opportunity to flex their individuality. If you’re stuck in the world of grayscale accessories, if you want to be seen, or if you’re simply looking for an accessory to bring color to your life, might we suggest that you check out some of goodr’s best and brightest sunglasses!

girls partying in pink neon sunglasses
BEFORE WE DIVE INTO THE VARYING LEVELS OF NEON SUNGLASSES, LET’S GO OVER GOODR’S KICK@$$ FRAME STYLES.
1. The OGs:

Our most classic frame. In fact, these sunglasses were inspired from a frame style that dates back to the 1950s and 60s. Therefore, making them a true OG pair of sunglasses. It is a shape that, honest to goodness, looks good on everyone. Not only do they look good, they’ll feel good on your face while you’re doing whatever it is you do. Damn, how many times did we say “good” in that sentence. Whatever, when the biz is named “goodr” aka the improper spelling of a grammatically incorrect word, repeating the word “good” shouldn’t matter. Moving on!

2. The BFGs:

Made for larger noggins or if you just want more coverage, BFG stands for Big Fucking Goodrs. Perfect for the Big Friendly Giants in your life. They have enhanced silicon detailing which allows them to stay comfortably put while you’re doing your thang.

3. The Runways:

The Runways bring high fashion cateye style to a super functional frame. These sunglasses scream, “I rule the world!” Especially when neon.

4. Super Flys:

The flyest of the fly, these aviator inspired frames have wider coverage and all the style points. With a lightweight frame designed for cyclists, the truth is, these dope AF shades look good on everyone.

NEON GREEN SUNGLASSES
Let’s start with neon green sunglasses! Neon green was one of the first neon shades developed. It also goes by UFO green and electric lime. Whether or not extraterrestrial life actually exists in this Pantone, is unfalsifiable information. However, here at goodr we’re not going to be the ones to rule it out completely, we’ll consider it to be a possibility.

For neon green sunglasses, let us introduce you to The Runways style, Total Lime Piece! These cateye frames are the lime-iest green, with magnificent purple mountain majesty lenses.

NEON PINK SUNGLASSES
Who doesn’t love the color pink? If you hate the color pink, go the flock home! Carl despises pink-haters. He takes it as a personal attack considering his body is 99.4% pink. Neon pink is also called plastic pink-- which we’re pretty sure is actually thanks to Don Featherstone’s 1957 Nobel Prize winning pink plastic flamingo sculpture, later mass produced in the 70s. Regardless, pink FTW!

Embrace your inner pink with a pair of Becky’s Bachelorette Bacchanal. The perfect OG style polarized sunglasses for your next wild revelry.

NEON BLUE SUNGLASSES
Electric blue, it maintains the calm and tranquil quality of blue while still being marvelously vivid. Probably why these Electric Dinotopia Carnival teal and purple sunglasses are all the rage! From rave to run, these sunglasses scream FUN.

Your mom warned you about gateway drugs, but did she tell you about gateway colors?! Not everyone’s face feels ready to take on a full blown neon explosion. Sometimes an accessory so loud takes a little easing into. goodr has created these marvelously bright shades without all of the crazy electromagnetic waves to help bridge the gap between colorful and fluorescent.

GATEWAY TO NEON YELLOW SUNGLASSES
Yellow, the color of the sun, debatably the brightest and happiest color of all time. These sunglasses might not be “neon” by Bob Switzer’s standards, but they’re extremely bright and happy.

Swedish Meatball Hangover, with their OG yellow frames and blue mirrored lenses are the sunglasses with the high school superlative of, “most likely to brighten your day!”

GATEWAY TO NEON ORANGE SUNGLASSES
Safety cones, construction zones, OG Gatorade coolers, OH AND OF COURSE, the DENVER DONKEYS! These are some of our favorite (orange) things.

If you’re looking to bring a little bright orange to your face, might we suggest these orange BFGs, yup, the ones with a bigger frame. These sunglasses, named Orange Crush Rush. are made for BAMFs (which stands for Bad Ass Mother Fuckers for those of you that might reside under a rock-- although we’re pretty sure Patrick Star from Spongebob, who actually DOES live under a rock even knows what BAMF stands for…). CrossFit, OCRs, beerfests, squirt gun battles, mini golf championships, these rad sunglasses will make sure you stand out while you’re kicking ass and taking names.

orange CrossFit sunglasses
WHAT ABOUT PROTON PURPLE?!
Ooo bright purple we’re lookin’ at you! We’ll put this in the “gateway to neon” category too. The Purple People Eater’s sunglasses of choice are these badass shades. He made a deal that he wouldn’t eat us if we promised him excellent customer service. Thankfully our Customer Service Parrots are the bomb dot com, so no lives have been taken by this deal.

The sunglasses we’re talking about are the Super Flys, Sleazy Riders. With a translucent frame and extra groovy purple mirrored lenses these sunglasses will actually make you look fiercer than the Purple People Eater… but shhh… we definitely shouldn’t let him know we said that. He’s a giant softy, until… CHOMP.

Priced at $25 and $35 dollars, goodr offers cheap neon sunglasses, without sacrificing quality. Let’s use the word “affordable” from now on though, because even though the price point is spot on, the word “cheap” does not do our sunglasses justice. These aren’t the cheesy freebies that you get at the bar (you know, when you’re lucky enough to be there during that one hour of a good booze promo). goodr sunglasses are made with functionality in mind, with their signature, no slip, no bounce, and all polarized amazingness.

Oh HECK yes we said POLARIZED! Let’s talk about what it means to be polarized. “Polarized” is certainly a buzz word in the sunglass world. It’s often used to sound techy and an excuse to jack the price tag up. We hate to break it to you, but that’s all garbage marketing. You really can have legit polarized sunglasses for $25 to $35 dollars. Polarized sunglasses reduce glare-causing reflections found on flat surfaces. The sun blasts the light in all directions, but when it hits a flat surface it bounces back in a more uniform path. This typically horizontal rechanneling of light intensifies the light in a way that annoys our eyes, causing glare, and reducing visibility. This is simply fixed with a special filter that blocks intense reflected light. In other words, hello polarized lenses! The result, crisper visibility and decreased eye strain when in bright light. Hot damn! Bright sunglasses that help your eyes in bright light! Sounds like you really can have your cake and eat it too.

BUT SERIOUSLY, ENOUGH BREAKING IT DOWN ALREADY. We’re thinking that the three minutes and 35 seconds we stole from you is officially up. And if you made it this far THANK YOU, because it’s possible that this was more of a ten minute read... Do you know what time it is now!? Time to put your party pants on, grab a matching pair of neon sunglasses, and go have all of the FUN.