Red contact lenses are primarily theatrical and film-oriented, such as in horror and science fiction. These provide an effect that brings ghoulish or alien characters to life. When looking into such eerie eyes, one cannot help but get a chill up the spine. The special effects intended by the red contact lens works mystifyingly and fantastically.

Among the most well-known and most popular red contact lenses are the red sclera contact lens, which turns the entire eye red, include the white (or, at least, makes the entire eye appear red); the Red UV glow in the dark contact lens, which allow one to appear ghoulish in the dark; the Blood-red contact lens, which creates that (hungry creature) look; the red hot colored contact lens and the red tinted soft contact lens, both variations on the blood red; vampire contact lenses, which are strongly and intimately associated with the blood-red contact lens; the vampire red contact lenses, a variation on the vampire contact lens; and, of course, the bloodshot-red contact lenses, which aren’t only used for monster creation, but other characters, too, such as the town drunk, a fevered patient, or a madman. Red colored contact lenses have a plethora of uses and applications, so these are a very popular style of novelty contact lens.

Believe it or not, however, a red colored contact lens also has a corrective purpose, and that is for one aberrant visual condition. Achromatopsia, also called rod monochromatism, is condition very similar to color blindness. Two kinds of this condition exist: Complete Achromatopsia, which is complete color blindness, and Incomplete Achromatopsia, which refers to minimal (or residual) color acquisition (colors are reduced to very faint particles). Red central lenses are used to treat this condition. Contact lenses, in this case, are not completely red; a red filter is centered on a soft, clear corrective contact lens to minimize the degree of normal light into the eye, but allows red light access. In regular daylight, this contact lens, red in the middle, is virtually invisible. The red appears like a dark dot, much like the pupil of the eye. This red contact lens is medically-oriented to promote healthy vision and is not to be confused with the more well-known novelty red contact lens.

Regardless of which of these is considered, contact lenses should not be ordered without first obtaining a prescription from a licensed eye care specialist. This is the case even with a red contact lens. Freshlook® Radiance, known for its wide variety of natural and unnatural eye colors—including red—is also a soft corrective lens that requires a prescription to purchase. Novelty contact lenses, however, are bolder and more entrancing, but a prescription is recommended for these as well, as eye injury is very possible if the contacts are handled carelessly, improperly, or of the fitting is not right.