The Fitz Blog

The origin story behind our November Color of the Month, Cinnamon. (And a recipe to boot!)

The origin story behind our October Color of the Month, Royal Blue.

At Fitz We firmly believe in the Scout motto "Be prepared". September is Emergency Preparedness month. (Turns out there’s a month for that.) As parents, we do our best to be prepared for the worst. We make a plan, we build a kit, we talk to our kids, but sometimes we can get overwhelmed by daily life and forget the obvious, but incredibly important... backup glasses.

If you or your family have been impacted by the recent natural disasters and you’re in need of glasses, please reach out to support@fitzframes.com. We can expedite a new pair at a discount. If you don’t have your prescription handy, don’t worry. We can get it from your doctor for you.

Happy International Women’s Day! And did you know that March is Women’s History Month? If you’re not familiar, Women’s History Month is meant to recognize women’s contributions to American history and was first celebrated nationally in 1980 as Women’s History Week. The observance was actually started by a women’s commission in Santa Rosa, California (our CEO’s hometown!) and spread across the country as local groups celebrated in their communities. In 1987, Congress passed a law designating the month of March as Women’s History Month and each year, the President proclaims this publicly.

The pandemic has thrown all of us for a loop and required us to delay, change or cancel many plans in the last year. Like many families, my kids were all due for their eye doctor check ups last March - naturally, the week after the lockdown was announced. I postponed their appointments until it seemed a bit safer to enter an office. I finally decided it was time this fall and took all three kids one morning. Now that we’ve been living with this virus for a while, I felt very safe with the precautions the doctor and his staff had in place and was happy to check this important task off of our to-do list.

2020 has been quite a year for all of us. I’m grateful for many things this year, including the fact that my small business has been able to weather the Covid “new reality” and that we have continued to help those who depend on eyeglasses but are hesitant to leave home to find them. Knowing that kids like mine (and many adults!) have been able to pick their glasses out using our app, with a little less stress, is such validation for the creation of Fitz Frames. The most rewarding part of this year has been the work our team has done in developing Fitz Protect for the selfless, healthcare workers. They are the true heroes of 2020.

Not having to worry about your kids’ glasses is the Holy Grail for parents of glasses wearers. Our founder, Heidi Hertel, talks about the joy of having glasses that are nearly indestructible and easy to replace.

Wow, what a year 2020 has been! Many of us are getting ready for our children to go back to school and never before has that meant so many different things. Families have had to make decisions on homeschooling, in-person school, pods and even gap years. In the last five months, many of us have also had to rethink and reinvent what their “child’s classroom or office” looks like.

It is estimated that over 100,000 small businesses have closed in the United States since the inception of Covid-19. I find this heartbreaking not only because I own a small business myself, but because of how much I love and appreciate these types of companies. Don't get me wrong, I use Amazon in a pinch and dare you to find someone who adores Target more, but for a long time, I've seen how often people take the benefits small businesses offer for granted. I’m worried that we will lose these merchants who make unique products and have an unparalleled love and expertise in their work, not to mention a special connection with the customers they serve. Small businesses are truly the heartbeat of our communities.

Blue light is near-ultraviolet light emitted by smartphones, tablets, computer monitors and TVs. All devices you and your family have likely been seeing more of of late. Studies show that blue light can disrupt your sleep and may cause long-term retinal damage. Developing eyes, those of us under 16, are even more susceptible to blue light damage.

We’ll walk you through the nuances of blue light and the steps you can take to help protect your eyes.

We founded Fitz to solve glasses for families. While we knew that 3D printing technology would enable us to develop new frame designs (sans screws!), we never dreamed we would find a need to design glasses that would actually save lives.

Introducing Fitz Protect.

During this unique time, advice is pretty uniformly “stay home, don’t touch your face and wash your hands frequently”. How do glasses factor in? Can they play a part in our health? Here are a few thoughts from Dr. Stacy L. Pineles, MD,MS and Director of Ophthalmology at UCLA.

Hope you are hanging in during what has felt like the most surreal/scary extended period of time for many of us as parents. As I’m trying to desperately keep all of the hands clean in my household, a few things have occurred to me that have helped me and my family and I wanted to share them with you:

From black and white televisions to smartphones, “too much screen time” has long been considered as a cause of poor eyesight. Research has, in fact, shown that too much screen time can have a detrimental effect on their vision. This is the reason why the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that parents limit screen time to less than one hour for children two to five years old, and to impose 'consistent limits' on older children while prioritizing sleep, physical activity and healthy behavior. In this article, we will look at the repercussions of staring at a screen too often and what parents can do to combat this.

From black and white televisions to smartphones, “too much screen time” has long been considered as a cause of poor eyesight. Research has, in fact, shown that too much screen time can have a detrimental effect on their vision. This is the reason why the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that parents limit screen time to less than one hour for children two to five years old, and to impose 'consistent limits' on older children while prioritizing sleep, physical activity and healthy behavior. In this article, we will look at the repercussions of staring at a screen too often and what parents can do to combat this.

The world of eyewear offers no shortage of styles and now, consumers are starting to invest more time in learning about lenses, too. With so many on the market, it can be hard to decipher the differences in materials. We have taken the legwork out of the equation for you and would like to highlight polycarbonate.

With Fall disappearing before our eyes and Winter fast-approaching, there is nothing more inconvenient than dealing with the increasing frequency of foggy lenses. From driving your car to work to going for a stress-busting run, when your glasses fog up, navigating your everyday life is just harder. Which begs the question: What causes your glasses to fog up and are there any ways to prevent it from happening? 

Spending time and money is less than optimal, which is why we have put together a few easy and cost-effective solutions for remedying scratches.

Any person with impaired vision knows that navigating through the world with compromised vision can be frustrating, at best. From driving a car to making your way around the furniture in your own home, unclear or blurry eyesight can make even the simplest tasks challenging. But, when you discover that you need vision correction, more often than not, you may ask yourself, “ Contacts or glasses?” So, we did the research for you to help you understand the pros and cons of each option.

Have you ever looked at you or your child’s eyeglass prescription and felt as though you were looking at another language? Well, you’re not alone. It’s actually one of the most frequently asked glasses-related questions on the internet. That being said, we have created this quick (and much easier to read) guide for figuring out what your prescription is really saying.

It’s a universal parenting truth: when your kid comes home sick, the rest of the household is about to get sick. All parents cringe at the email with the subject header, “your child has been exposed to…”.  So, when the apple of your eye arrives with those sad, swollen peepers and is obviously uncomfortable, it’s definitely time for damage control.