There’s no getting away from the fact that Miss Frugal has expensive taste!

She loves a good designer label which used to cause us arguments when it came to buying new clothes and accessories as I don’t have a designer budget and even if I did, I begrudge paying way over the odds for a particular brand.  I shared our solution to this argument here and we’ve pretty much come to an understanding as far as clothes are concerned.

But clothes are only a small part of her love of all things fashion – today I’m going to share her prized Sunglasses collection with you because she has more pairs of sunglasses than an opticians has and they’re all bargains that she’s accumulated over the last few years.

She has some cheaper pairs in her collection and a couple of fakes designer ones that she bought on holiday and I was a little bit concerned about whether or not they would be good for her eyes, especially after I read that wearing some cheap sunglasses is actually worse than wearing none.  I’m sorry to link to the Daily Mail here but it’s the clearest article I’ve read about the dangers of cheap sunglasses and I really wanted to make sure I let you know that not all sunglasses will protect your eyes in the sun.

The fakes in Miss Frugal’s collection are generally relegated to the ‘lovely to have and look at but not ones to wear in the sun’ pile since I read that article but she is often found with them on her head on dull days, more as a glorified headbands than anything else though.  She knows which ones are safe to wear (or at least which ones had the CE sticker on declaring them safe to wear in the sun and they’re the ones that she wears when she actually needs a pair of sunglasses.

These fake Ray-Bans are from Cyprus last year and although I can’t remember the exact price, I’m sure they were something like two for 7 Euros or three for 10 Euros so she bought some Chanel and Marc Jacobs fakes too.  Then there’s her collection from Claire’s Accessories which she buys in bulk when the five items for a fiver deal comes around every year which is a great deal when you consider that each pair usually costs more than than individually.

There’s a couple of pairs in her collection that were 50p from a car boot sale last year and one from a charity shop in town that cost her a whole pound.  

Until recently her favourite ones were a gorgeous pair of Betsey Johnson glasses from TKMaxx that she bought for £10 ish a few weeks ago.  They’re really pretty but I suspect that the delivery we got last week from GlassesUSA.com has just provided her with the only two pairs of sunglasses that she’s going to be wearing for the foreseeable future.

In case you haven’t heard of GlassesUSA.com then I promise you that they’re worth checking out.  They sell quality prescription glasses and sunglasses at great prices that are often up to 70% off the normal retail prices.  They also do non-prescription sunglasses which are what we got from them for Miss Frugal.

Whatever you’re after, I’m pretty sure that you’ll find it on GlassesUSA.com.  I lost Miss Frugal for a good hour while sehe browsed their huge selection of over 2,500 styles – mainly because she was having so much fun using their virtual mirror service where you can upload a photo and see what the glasses will look like on you.  How cool is that!!

They have their own in-house brands such as Muse, Amelia E. as well as , designer brands like ray-ban, Oakley, tom ford, chloe, Armani and Adidas.  The glasses come in a wide variety of frame styles so there’s no way you’re not going to find the right style for you on there.

Miss Frugal chose a pair of ray-ban sunglasses which she is apparently ‘in love’ with….

The tortoiseshell effect of the ray-bans is something that Miss Frugal wasn’t overly convinced on when she first saw them but she kept going back to this pair so in the end she went for them and kept her fingers crossed that she would like them.  They really suit her and they’re just that little bit different to the rest of her sunglasses and they’re clearly a much higher quality than any of the other pairs that she owns.  As a parent, I’m happy that she’s found a pair of sunglasses that she likes wearing and that have great UV protection against the harmful rays from the sun.

The other pair that we got were a pair of Zane sunglasses that I personally love even more than the ray-ban ones….

Again, these are so well made and you can see the quality of them.  I love that the gold effect frame is just across the top of the glasses rather than a full frame – it makes them look very stylish and definitely a pair that I regret telling Miss Frugal she could have.

I actually think that the ray-bans are going to cure Miss Frugal of her sunglasses addiction as she loves them that much that no other pair is going to come close to these!  And just in case you’re wondering, I absolutely know that you only need one pair of sunglasses but she’s a teenager who loves sunglasses – what can I do?  

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The post Style on a Budget – the one with the sunglasses addiction…. appeared first on The Diary of a Frugal Family.