Cleaning and storing ski goggles without ruining the lens

The one thing that ruins a goggle

A goggle’s anti-fog performance comes from a hydrophilic coating bonded to the inner pane, which spreads condensation into a thin film you can see through instead of droplets you cannot. It is microns thick, and it is not durable against abrasion.

A single wipe with a glove takes it off. So does a sleeve, a paper towel, a napkin, or a t-shirt with grit on it. After that the goggle fogs like a goggle with no treatment at all, which is exactly what it now is, and no spray fully restores it. The fuller explanation of why goggles fog covers the habits that stop it happening in the first place.

On the mountain

1. Wet inside? Shake it out with a firm flick, lens down. Do not touch the surface.
2. Snow on the outside? Brush it off with a gloved finger, or better, let the airflow do it as you ski.
3. Fogged? Stop somewhere safe, take them off, and hold them facing into the wind for a minute. Moving dry air clears a light fog without contact.
4. Going inside for lunch? Take the goggles off and leave them face up on the table rather than in a warm pocket. Twenty minutes of that dries them completely.

At the end of the day

• Dry them face up, at room temperature. Not on a radiator, a heat vent or a boot dryer: heat distorts the frame and can separate the two panes of a double lens.
• Do not put them away wet. A damp goggle in a sealed bag grows a smell and softens the foam.
• Rinse the outer lens if it is dirty, with clean cool water, then blot dry with the soft bag. No detergent, no glass cleaner, no alcohol wipes: all three attack lens coatings.
• Store them in the soft bag. That bag is a microfiber lens cloth folded into a pouch, not packaging. It is the only thing that should ever touch the lens.

The face foam

The foam is the part that wears out first on a goggle that is otherwise fine, and it is also the part that decides whether the goggle seals. Never wash it with detergent, which strips the loft, and never dry it with heat, which hardens it. Air drying is the whole maintenance routine.

When a lens is scratched

A scratch on the outer pane is cosmetic until it is in your line of sight, at which point it is genuinely distracting in flat light. A scratch on the inner pane is worse, because it is in focus.

Whether that means a new lens or a new goggle depends entirely on whether the goggle takes replacement lenses. This is worth thinking about before you buy rather than after:

• Interchangeable-lens goggles take replacements, which are a separate purchase. A magnetic system swaps in seconds with gloves on; a frame that has to be flexed is fiddlier and is where people scratch a lens.
• Fixed-lens goggles are cheaper up front and are a whole purchase again when the lens goes.

Our goggle picks compare the real two-lens cost rather than the sticker price, for exactly this reason.

The accessories worth owning, and the ones that are not

• A hard case: worth it if goggles travel in a suitcase or a backpack with anything else. A goggle crushed against a boot buckle is a replaced goggle.
• A spare lens: worth it if you ski somewhere with genuinely variable light. A pale, high-transmission lens for flat light transforms a storm day. Which lens to add.
• Anti-fog spray: worth carrying only if the factory coating has already been wiped off. Use a product made for optics rather than an automotive one.
• Lens cleaning solutions and cloths: generally not needed. Clean water and the bag the goggles came in do the job and are less likely to attack a coating.

Children’s goggles

Teach two rules and skip the rest: do not wipe the inside, and do not put them on your forehead. Those two habits account for most of what goes wrong with a child’s goggle, and both are easy to explain.

Beyond that, a child’s goggle is a consumable. It gets dropped from lifts and left in lodges, which is why our children’s picks start at a published $29.99 and why a second cheap pair beats one expensive one.