Swimming Goggles

What makes a good pair of swimming goggles? Many swimmers spend years looking for the perfect pair while others never seem to. Some send away to exotic countries for kits to make their own eyewear and some just make do with whatever they can find at the local sporting good store. I'm going to save you a lot of time and effort and share a secret.

Your FACE makes good goggles.

No I'm not playing some adolescent put-down game. I'm just laying out a very simple and straightforward fact. Your facial structure determines which kind of swimming goggles will fit and work for you best, specifically, the topography of your temples, eyes, brow, and bridge of the nose. So before you go off the sporting-goods store to buy a broad range of goggles in the hopes of finding one that works, take an honest appraisal of your face in the mirror. If you have an aquiline nose, a pronounced eyebrow ridge, deep set eyes, or pronounced cheekbones, the smaller box-like goggles are probably for you. The smallest of which were once only sold via mail order from Sweden. Now you can get them online here. They still arrive in a kit and you will have to supply your own string for the nose piece. However, if you have a flatter face, a wider or smaller nose, or wide set eyes, the bug-eye goggles might be for you. (Bug-eye goggles always fit me best and my favoirite style was made by Tyr.) Now an honest appraisal will get you close to finding a perfect fit, but now that we've determined which type of swimming goggles will work for you best, it's time to explore.

Go to a few sporting-goods stores in your area and sit yourself down in the swimming accessories section. Start trying on goggles. Many sporting-goods stores are used to swimmers going through their swimming gear so if you're clean and put them back in the packaging the way they were when you took them out, they won't mind you trying on as many pairs as you need. Place the goggles over your eyes and pull the strap over your head. Once the strap is set, press them onto your eyes with the heels of your hands. The seal should contact your skin the entire way around and you should feel your eyeballs sucked slightly into the goggles. If you feel air near your eyes, or if you feel gaps in the seal, try another pair.

Next, you'll want to test them to see if they'll stay on during a dive. Few sporting-goods stores, if any, have their own swimming pools in them so here's a trick I learned to test the seal. Once you've got these goggles set on your eyes, take your fingertips and tug, lightly, on the top rims of the goggles just under your eyebrows. If the seal breaks, they will never survive a dive into the water and you should keep looking for another pair. If the seal does not break, you've got yourself a good pair of swimming goggles. Buy this pair and go try them in the pool.

Once you have a pair of goggles you love to death are you done looking for goggles? No. Goggles, like all equipment, wear out. So once you do find that perfect pair, save up your money and buy out the stores in your area. Swimming goods manufacturers love to think that goggles are fashionable. As such, they love to create new designs every few years. I can't count the number of times my friends and I would have a set of goggles falling off our faces because our beloved designs were no longer made. Do not let this happen to you. Getting a stash of good goggles allows you to last out the fashion cycle to a time when they'll be "hip" to making your style of goggles again.

The Original Swedish Goggles

My Favorite Bug-Eye Goggles, Made by Tyr