Cheap sunglasses fail EU safety standards

Most cheap sunglasses sold by fashion retailers on the high street do not meet EU safety standards according to latest testing.

The Optical Appliances Testing Service at City University London also found little correlation between investment and quality at a price range between £1 and £25.

Of the 100 sunglasses it tested last month, 57 pairs failed EU standards.

Failures ranged from the uniformity of transmittance to the robustness of the lenses, with ball drop, uniformity and scatter tests all carried out.

In total, 49 per cent of all failures were on the drop ball impact test, which involves dropping a metal ball of specific dimensions from a specified height on the lens.