Clean hands balancing a hazel colored contact lens on an index fingertip before insertion

How to Put In Colored Contacts (and Take Them Out Safely)

To put in colored contacts: wash and dry your hands, check the lens is not inside out, balance it on your index fingertip, hold both eyelids open, look straight ahead and place the lens on your iris, then blink slowly. The part most guides skip is what comes first. Reusable colored lenses need cleaning before they go in.

This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. Contact lenses — including non-prescription colored lenses — are medical devices. Always have your eyes examined and your lenses fitted by a licensed eye care professional before wear.

Almost every insertion guide online was written for daily disposables: open a sealed packet, use it, throw it away. Colored lenses rarely work that way. Every lens Seebelle sells is reusable, so yours comes out of a storage case, and that puts extra steps at the front of the routine.

What this guide covers

Before you touch the lens: two checks

Most first-time failures happen before the lens ever reaches your eye.

1. Hands first

Wash your hands with soap and water, then dry them on a lint-free towel. The American Academy of Ophthalmology puts this first for a reason: fibers from an ordinary towel transfer straight onto a wet lens, and so does anything else on your fingers. Keep your nails short and work over a clean counter, not an open sink.

2. Is the lens inside out?

Balance the lens on your fingertip and look at it side-on, at eye level. A correctly oriented lens forms a clean bowl with the edges pointing straight up. An inside-out lens flares outward at the rim, like a shallow saucer.

Here is where colored lenses differ from clear ones, and where most guides stop being useful. On an opaque lens — one with solid pigment covering your natural iris rather than tinting it — the printed pattern and the dark outer limbal ring make that rim much harder to read.

Two checks that do work on a pigmented lens:

  • Check the print, not the edge. The color pattern is printed toward the front of the lens. The right way round, it looks recessed inside the bowl. Inside out, it sits on the outside of the curve and looks flattened.
  • Use the taco test. Pinch the lens gently between finger and thumb. A correct lens folds cleanly with the edges meeting. An inside-out lens resists and springs apart.
Two hazel colored contact lenses on fingertips, one correctly bowl-shaped and one inside out
Left: correct, edges curving straight up. Right: inside out, the rim flares outward.

How to put in colored contacts, step by step

  1. Wash and dry your hands on a lint-free towel.
  2. Take the right lens from its case and rinse it with fresh multipurpose solution.
  3. Balance the lens on the pad of your index finger, bowl side up.
  4. Hold your upper lid firmly against your brow bone with your other hand.
  5. Pull your lower lid down with the middle finger of your lens hand.
  6. Look straight ahead and place the lens directly onto your iris.
  7. Release the lower lid first, then the upper, and blink slowly a few times.

Look straight ahead rather than up. Placing the lens on the iris rather than the white of the eye seats it centered, and centering matters more on a colored lens, because a misaligned pupil hole is visible to everyone looking at you.

If you blink at the last moment, that is a reflex, not a failure. Holding the upper lid against the bone rather than the lash line is what stops it.

How to take out colored contacts

Wash and dry your hands again. Look up, pull your lower lid down, and slide the lens down onto the white of your eye — the sclera — with the pad of your index finger. Pinch it gently between index finger and thumb, and lift it away.

Pinch with the pads, never the nails. Colored lenses carry printed pigment between layers of lens material, and a nail that catches the surface can damage the lens and scratch your eye on the next wear.

A lens that feels stuck is almost always dry. Add a few drops of a rewetting product made for contact lenses, blink several times, wait a minute, then try again. Never force a dry lens off the eye.

Fingertips pinching a hazel colored contact lens off the white of the eye to remove it

What changes when your lenses are reusable

Seebelle's catalogue runs on two replacement schedules only: yearly and 6-month. There are no dailies and no monthlies. The same physical lens goes into your eye many times, so the routine around it carries the safety load.

Start by keeping each lens in its own side of the case. Colored lenses are often bought in one shade for both eyes, which makes left and right feel interchangeable, but once worn each lens carries deposits from the eye it came out of. Open the right chamber first and insert the right lens first, every time.

Four rules do the heavy lifting, all from the AAO's contact lens care guidance:

  • Rub and rinse every time. Rub the lens with clean fingers in fresh multipurpose solution, then rinse it, even when the bottle says "no-rub".
  • Never top off old solution. Empty the case and refill with new solution every use. Reusing yesterday's solution is one of the behaviors behind the serious eye infections the CDC links to poor lens hygiene, including microbial keratitis.
  • Keep water away. No tap water, no showering or swimming in lenses, and never saliva.
  • Disinfect with the right product. Saline and rewetting drops rinse and comfort, but the AAO is explicit that they do not disinfect. Only a disinfecting solution does that job.
  • Replace the case at least every three months, and immediately if it cracks.

One rule matters more for colored lenses than any other kind, and it was missing from every competing guide we read. The AAO advises never wearing lenses stored for 30 days or longer without re-disinfecting them first.

Read that against how colored lenses actually get used. A shade bought for a wedding, a shoot or a costume sits in its case for weeks between wears. That is the normal pattern, not an edge case. Before wearing a pair you have not touched in a month, empty the case, refill it with fresh solution, and let the lenses soak again first. The full routine is on our Safety & Care page.

Why lens diameter changes how insertion feels

A lens that feels awkward is often just physically bigger than you are used to. Diameter (marked DIA on the product page) is the width of the lens across its face. Seebelle's 154 products come in exactly three, each paired with a fixed base curve (BC), the curvature that sets how the lens sits against your cornea.

DIA BC Seebelle series How it inserts
14.0 mm 8.5 mm Hidrocor Gen3, Pro, Spanish, Symphony, Euroring (yearly); Queen, Roze, OMG (6-month) Easiest. Most clearance between the lids
14.2 mm 8.6 mm Hidrocor, Premium, Ocean, Hidrocor II, Rio, Iris (yearly); Blush Girl, Mood Night (6-month) Middle ground, and our most common size
14.5 mm 8.6 mm 3-Tone, Bellalens, Diamond, Nonno, Broadway (yearly); Diamond N, Supersize, LUNA, Spanish Circle (6-month) Widest lid hold. Least forgiving of a rushed placement

Half a millimeter sounds like nothing, but a 14.5 mm lens leaves noticeably less room between your lids than a 14.0 mm one. If you are not holding both lids properly open, that is the size where it shows.

An honest recommendation that does not favor us: for a first pair, start at 14.0 mm or 14.2 mm. That means our best-selling Pure Hazel 3-Tone Colored Contact Lenses (Yearly) at 14.5 mm are worth saving for your second pair, once the technique is automatic. You can compare sizes across the 126 colored lenses we stock, since every product page lists its DIA, BC and water content.

One more thing before you shop by name: our series names describe construction, not color. Safari, in the Hidrocor Gen3 series, is a blue lens. Graphite, in the Hidrocor series, is a gray. Read the color line on the product page rather than trusting the name, and see the Lens Guide for the difference between opaque and enhancement tints.

Correct two-handed eyelid hold for inserting a larger diameter colored contact lens
The upper lid is held against the brow bone, not the lash line. That is what stops the blink reflex.

If something goes wrong

  • The lens will not leave your finger. Your fingertip is too wet. The lens follows whichever surface is wetter, so dry your fingertip and keep the lens moist with solution.
  • Vision is blurry once it is in. Blink several times to let it center. Persistent blur usually means the lens is inside out, dirty, or in the wrong eye.
  • It sits off to one side. Close your eye, look toward the lens, and press gently through the lid to walk it back to center.
  • It stings on insertion. Usually trapped solution residue or a lens that needed a proper rinse. Take it out, rub and rinse with fresh solution, try again.

When to stop and see an eye care professional

Take the lens out and contact an optometrist or ophthalmologist if your eye is very red, painful, watering, unusually sensitive to light, or producing discharge, or if your vision drops. The U.S. FDA lists corneal abrasion, infection and, untreated, blindness among the risks of wearing decorative lenses incorrectly. Discomfort that does not clear within a minute or two of a clean re-insertion is not something to wait out.

Do you need a prescription for colored contacts?

It depends where you live, and the answers genuinely differ. Anyone telling you there is one global rule is wrong.

  • United States. The FDA's position is unambiguous: all contact lenses, including decorative ones with no vision correction, are medical devices that require a prescription from an eye doctor.
  • United Kingdom. Section 27 of the Opticians Act 1989 takes a different route. Zero-powered cosmetic lenses may not be sold unless the sale is made by, or under the supervision of, a registered medical practitioner, optometrist or dispensing optician. The obligation sits on how the lens is sold, rather than on you holding a prescription.
  • European Union. Non-corrective cosmetic lenses fall under Annex XVI of the Medical Device Regulation (EU) 2017/745 and, since 22 June 2023, must meet the common specifications in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2346. That regime governs how the lens is made and tested. It is not an EU-wide prescription requirement, and national rules on who may sell still vary.

Anywhere else, check your own national regulator before ordering. Whatever your country requires, a fitting appointment is worth having: base curve and diameter suit different eyes, and a poorly fitting lens is the most common cause of persistent discomfort. If you need vision correction as well as color, our prescription colored lenses are available across the 6-month series.

Frequently asked questions

Why won't my colored contacts stick to my eye?

Usually because your fingertip is wetter than the lens, so the lens stays on your finger. Dry your fingertip and keep the lens moist with solution. If the lens goes on but will not stay, it may be inside out.

Why is it blurry when I wear colored contacts?

Blink several times first, since a freshly inserted lens often needs a moment to center. Persistent blur usually means the lens is inside out, needs cleaning, or is in the wrong eye. A pupil hole sitting off-center reads as blur even when the lens is otherwise fine.

How do you know which way round a colored contact goes?

Look at it side-on at eye level: it should form a bowl with the edges pointing up, not flaring out. On opaque colored lenses the printed pattern is the more reliable cue, since it looks recessed inside the bowl when the lens is the right way round.

How long does it take for your eyes to adjust to colored contacts?

Awareness of a new lens usually settles over the first few wears as you get used to the sensation. Adjustment is not the same as tolerating pain. Discomfort that persists, or worsens during a session, means the lens should come out and be checked by an eye care professional.

Can you put colored contacts over regular contacts?

No. Stacking two lenses starves the cornea of oxygen and neither lens will sit correctly. If you need vision correction and color at once, use a single lens that does both.

Before your first pair

If you are still deciding what to order, our guide to picking your first pair covers color and series, and it is worth reading whether colored contacts are safe in the first place before you buy anywhere. Once you have a pair in, our guide to how long you can wear them each day and how long the lens itself lasts covers the two schedules that matter after that.

Written by: the Seebelle Editorial Team

Reviewed against: guidance from the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the U.S. FDA

Last updated: August 3, 2026

Sources

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