Onion Goggles are one of those things you think of when you are in the midst of cutting onions for your favorite recipe or quick midweek meal. By then, it is too late, and there you are, eyes burning, tears pouring down your cheeks. You try to power through, but your vision is blurry, and the more you hack away at that onion, the more “onion gas” you make. How did this all come about? You watched those YouTube videos and TikTok hacks a hundred times, and it looked so easy when the professional chefs did it. So now you search for the answer to your question. How to cut onions without crying? You comb the blog posts that all look like they are written by ChatGPT, and you see one common product among all the regular and ineffective old wives’ tales and crazy hacks. The one, the only, onion goggles. We have experienced the pain too and have decided to explore the options that are out there in more detail to see if onion goggles work? And if so, which are the best onion goggles? Are onion goggles worth it? And is there something that works better than onion goggles?
From our extensive research, we discovered that there are essentially three different styles of onion goggles, four if you count your handy set of swimming goggles, but we will discuss three.
The first and most popular style of onion goggles has clear lenses with thick frames and an interrupted foam lining that makes contact with your face. They almost look like Oakley sunglasses with clear lenses, but not as cool.
The second style of onion goggles is not really marketed as onion goggles but seem to be ranking high on Amazon and Google Shopping when you search for them. They are the classic “science” style onion goggles that fit tightly over your eyebrow and the bridge of your nose.
The third style of onion goggles we found was marketed as onion goggles for people who wear glasses. They are essentially onion goggles that fit over your eyeglasses. We thought they would be interesting to test.
We decided to compare the onion goggles on a few different categories instead of just the subjective "does this onion make me cry when I cut onions" test. Here they are:
Unboxing The Onion Goggles - Not really about the function, but it does give an indication of quality.
When all our onion goggles arrived, we were excited to open them up and get testing. The excitement was dulled a little when we unboxed the onion goggles. All three pairs of onion goggles were wrapped in cheap plastic, and to make matters worse, the second goggle style had plastic adhered to both sides of the goggles lens. There were no tabs to easily pull. You had to carefully scratch off the plastic with your nail and hope you didn’t damage the plastic of the onion goggles.
Fit and comfort of the onion goggles. The first pair of onion goggles were not too tight and fairly light; however, they felt askew, and there was no way to adjust them. The plastic frames seemed cheap and brittle, and I didn’t want to try to shape them too much as they were at risk of breaking. They also didn’t fit flush against my face, so it left me wondering how they can be effective in preventing the onion gas from reaching my eyes with huge gaping holes under my eyes.
The second pair of onion goggles, the “science” style, did fit over my eyes without any obvious gaps, so this was more promising. They were not very comfortable with the plastic digging into my cheeks a bit. I also noticed that they started to fog up very quickly, which was not ideal. I also had an indent on my face where they were once I took them off.
The over-the-glasses onion goggles style were light and fairly comfortable, but there was a large gap under my eyes where the onion gas would definitely be able to go. They also gave me this strange double-lens pseudo-magnification effect, which was certainly quite uncomfortable for my eyes.
Quality and Reliability of the Onion Goggles.
The first pair of “Oakley” style onion goggles were made of a very light and brittle-looking plastic. The lenses didn’t seem of the best quality plastic either. The type of plastic used had NO BPA FREE stamps. I know that it is not a deal-breaker for some, but they will likely come into contact with other utensils in the kitchen drawers or even my hands and food during the cooking process. It can be unsettling to think about. This was, in fact, true for all the onion goggles we tested.
The second pair was made from a more flexible plastic and appeared more durable. The head strap was a little flimsy, and I can imagine it stretching over time, which will affect the function of these onion goggles in the future.
The over-the-glasses onion goggles were quite well-made and lightweight. They were, however, flimsy and definitely prone to getting scratched up in the miscellaneous kitchen drawer.
The Smoke Machine Test of Onion Goggles.
Here is the method that we used for the smoke test. Place onion goggles on your face, use a handheld smoke machine, and blow smoke up towards the face. Watch to see whether the smoke gets between the eyes and the lenses of the onion goggles. This is a great way to see how the onion gas would behave. We have to use smoke or vapor because they are easily visible. Onion gas (syn-propanethial-S-oxide) is colorless and not visible. It is also lighter than air so it rises quickly and moves easily into any gap in the onion goggles. Don’t try this at home.
All the onion goggles and the over-the-glasses goggles failed the smoke test dismally. There was a large amount of smoke that got in where the poorly fitting first pair of onion goggles. We tried the test again by tethering the goggles tightly against the face to see if any smoke would get in between the perforations of the goggles and sure enough the smoke made its way in. It is no wonder that these onion goggles all get such poor reviews.
The second “scientist” style of onion goggles, the smoke in by the gaps between where your nose meets the face.
The outcome of this experiment was that onion goggles don’t work at keeping the onion gas from our eyes. One thing to remember is that onion gas also reaches your eyes though your naso-lacrimal duct in your nose and none of these or any onion goggles out there account for that.
There is hope on the horizon in the form of an innovative new product called The Laughing Onion. It is a device that prevents the onion gas from even reaching your face so there is no need for ever getting or using onion goggles. You can chop, dice, and slice your way with all the freedom and time you need without ever worrying about shedding a tear. And better still when the device is not in use, you store it on preservation mode in your fruit bowl, and it will make your fruit and vegetables last significantly longer.