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Dry Eyes Driving You Crazy? Find Relief for Dry Eyes in This Month’s VSP EnVision Newsletter “Ask The Eye Doc” Column with Dr. Michelle

Q. Lately my eyes have become dry and scratchy feeling when I blink. How can I soothe my irritated eyes?

A. Every time you blink, your healthy eyes get a bath from a fluid that’s a combination of oil, water, and mucus. This fluid, or tears, helps protect and moisturize the eyes. When something irritates your eyes or interferes with the production of tears, it can result in irritated dry eyes that are vulnerable to corneal abrasions.

Dry eyes are actually very common. More than 20 million Americans suffer from this annoying and sometimes painful condition. If you think you have dry eyes, check out some of these common symptoms and possible causes. Once you understand the culprit, you can begin to make changes to relieve your burning eyes, once and for all.

Symptoms of Dry Eyes:

• Dry, itchy, or burning eyes
• A scratching sensation, or feeling like there’s grit in the eyes
• Sensitivity to light causing squinting and blinking
• Difficulty focusing because of dryness
• Both eyes are usually affected
• Watery eyes (a little known fact!)

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Who Says Turkeys Don’t Have a Sense of Style? Check Out This Fashionable Bird Caught On Camera Strolling the Streets of Boston

When we saw this photo of a wild turkey all puffed up and preening on the streets of Brookline, MA, we couldn’t help but have some Thanksgiving Day fun with the photo.

Apparently, wild turkeys — once on the verge of extinction in Massachusetts — have started turning up on the streets around Boston. This picture, taken in 2007, ironically was snapped outside of the office of a Brookline, MA optician.

Loving the leopard Louboutin booties, Chanel handbag and fab oversized white sunglasses!  No doubt she stopped traffic.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Urban Optiques Team!

Preview the New 2011 Chrome Hearts Eyewear Collection During Our Day-long Trunk Show on Saturday, December 11th!

Just in time for the holidays and the end of the Flex spending year, we’re thrilled to announce an exclusive, day-long opportunity for Metro-Detroit to get an inside look at the latest Chrome Hearts eyeglasses and sunglasses.

On Saturday, December 11th from 11 am to 3 pm, Spencer Walling of Chrome Hearts/Optical Shop International will be on location at Urban Optiques with the new 2011 Chrome Hearts Eyewear Collection.

We previewed these frames last month at Vision Expo West in Las Vegas and were extremely excited about the new designs.  So excited, in fact, that knew we had to get these frames into the boutique and in-front of Metro-Detroit eyewear and fashion lovers in advance of the new models actually shipping early next year.

Even better, Spencer will be bringing selections from the Chrome Hearts “Jewel Collection” — which includes custom eyewear featuring precious metals like 24K gold, sterling silver and rubies, diamonds, black diamonds,  and sapphires.

While we have carried a small number of these ultra-premium models in the past, December’s trunk show will be a rare opportunity to experience the larger Diamond Collection first hand. It will also provide a chance to do some early holiday shopping and light up the eyes of the eyewear lover in your life with a pair customized, jewelery-grade sunglasses or eyeglasses.

The Chrome Hearts Eyewear Trunk Show open house will run from 11 am to 3 pm and will be followed later that night by an invitation-only private cocktail reception and media preview.

If you pre-register for the open house, you’ll be entered to win a pair of Chrome Hearts “Baby Beast” sunglasses, as well as one of three Motor City Denim designer tees by Detroit fashion designer and Project Runway alum, Joe Faris. You can register here.

For details, or to request an invite to the private event, please contact us at 248.347-9090 or email us at seebeseen@urbanoptiques.com

Shopping, food and fun all for a good cause. Help support Detroit F.I.R.E. and be a hero! Plus, 20% off all sunglasses!

Start the Holiday Shopping season in style! Grab your favorite BFF and come visit Urban Optiques and other downtown shops for the 2010 “Girls Night Out, Friday November 12 from 6 pm – 10 pm.

Urban Optiques will be offering a rare discount for the night on ALL of our designer and couture sunglasses: 20% all sunglasses in the store, including FRED, Badgley Mischka, Sama, Loree Rodkin eyeCouture, Prada, Lafont, Lanvin and Chrome Hearts.  We’ll also be serving complimentary cocktails and wine.

Even better, for every $10 you spend you get a chance to enter the Downtown Northville “Girls Night Out” raffle. Northville Sports Den will host the afterglow with a drawing held at 9:30p.m.

The City of Northville, Northville Township and Detroit Fire fighters will be selling mistletoe throughout downtown.  A photo booth will be set up at Craig David Butler studios for a Holiday picture with Firefighters.

This event will benefit F.I.R.E., Firefighters Injured Relief Effort and all proceeds will go to four brave Detroit Firefighters who sustained life and career-altering injuries on August of this year.

Fab eyewear, fab time, fab cause!

See everyone tonight!

When You Deliver The Millionth Closed Loan, Your Shades Better Match The Mission! Check Out the Sunglasses from Urban Optiques Featured in Quicken Loan’s “The Millionth Loan” Movie …

Yesterday, Detroit-based national mortgage company Quicken Loans announced their millionth closed loan with a letter on their homepage (written in Comic Sans, no less) from founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert, a full-page ad in USA TODAY and a truly entertaining “mini-movie” about the guy who is put “in charge” of watching for the “millionth loan.”

Urban Optiques provided the sunglasses that appear on the two “men in black” in the elevator, the guys charged with making sure the millionth loan arrives safely to its destination.

The featured sunglasses are the Badgley Mischka Charles and the Prada PR65HS.  Both are rectangle-shaped aviators. Great choices to get that FBI/Secret Service/Private Security dude look.

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Check Out Jamie in Her New Special Edition Badgley Mischka Boyd Sunglasses!

Yes, people really do win those giveaway contests.

Just ask Jamie Henderson of Detroit, who scored herself a pair of super-lux Special Edition Badgley Mischka “Boyd” suns with 18K white gold lenses from Urban Optiques as part of September’s 944 Detroit Swag giveway.

Check out some pics we snapped of Jamie in her new shades.  Love ‘em on you Jamie! Congrats!

In This Month’s VSP EnVision Newsletter We Tackle Whether Lash Growth Serums Equal the End of Mascara as We Know It (And Will You Feel Fine?)

This month’s topic in my monthly “Ask The Eye Doctor” column in the VSP EnVision Newsletter might at first seem like a purely cosmetic one:

“Are new lash-growth serums the end of mascara as we know it?”

But if you dig a little deeper, this question goes more than skin-deep.

So ladies, before you throw out that tube of Chanel Inimitable to test drive one of the many eyelash growth products on the market, be sure to read this month’s column to understand how and why they work, as well as the potential risks.

CrowdRise, ALS Michigan and Quicken Loans are out to raise $70,000 dollars in just seven days using Facebook, Twitter and Social Media. Urban Optiques is Donating His and Her Tom Ford Sunglasses to the Top Fundraiser!

In Downtown Detroit right now, there is an entire group of passionate, dedicated people on a mission: Help whip ALS.

They are out mining their Facebook networks, reaching out to bloggers, Tweeting like crazy, throwing in not only their own dollars, but also their precious time all to hit a very lofty and aggressive goal: Raise $70,000 dollars in just seven days for ALS Research and do it all via small, $10 donations from people on Twitter, Facebook and a social fundraising website called “CrowdRise.”

ALS — Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. The mind stays sharp, but the body literally withers away making the person a virtual prisoner in their own body. The disease is fatal and has no cure. And it typically claims the persons life within 2-3 years.

The Tweet for ALS Team at Quicken Loans put together a video explaining ALS and what they are trying to do this week on YouTube. Take a just a few minutes to watch it:

How You Can Help?

Urban Optiques has joined the “Tweet for ALS” Cause this week because as one of the lesser known diseases out there, ALS simply doesn’t get the type of attention or fundraising dollars that other big (but equally important) causes like breast cancer receive.  But for anyone who has known someone who has battled ALS or understands the awful, debilitating and lethal toll this disease takes on its victims, it deserves our attention and dollars.

We also have lots of patients and clients from Quicken Loans, so we like supporting the causes that our clients support.

Finally we like that “Tweet for ALS” is trying to make a statement about the power of social networks to do good. The goal of the seven day fund-raising campaign is to raise $70,000 dollars in a very short period of time not through giant corporate donations, but a series of small, affordable $10 donations from average people.

When you think about it, this should be easy to do:  The average Facebook user has 130 friends, so if just 500 people were able to get a mere six $10 dollar donations from their friends, Tweet for ALS would have already met nearly half of their goal. If each of those six people who donated were able to get six more donations of $10 dollars themselves, we’d be at $60,000 dollars almost overnight.

You can donate by joining the Urban Optiques Tweet for ALS Team on http://www.crowdrise.com/tweetforals/fundraiser/urbanoptiques

Upping the Ante: Free His and Her Tom Ford Sunglasses for the Top Fundraiser!

To help the fundraising effort, Urban Optiques is giving away a pair of his and hers Tom Ford sunglasses with a retail value of nearly $1,000 dollars to the top fundraiser on the Urban Optiques “Tweet for ALS” Team on CrowdRise. We’ll award the sunglasses to the person who has raised the most money as of midnight, Thursday September 23.

To sign up and start raising money and qualify for the prize, just go here: http://www.crowdrise.com/tweetforals/fundraiser/urbanoptiques

It literally takes less than 60 seconds to sign-up and Crowdrise makes it easy for you to share and reach out to your Facebook friends and Twitter followers.  Our goal for the Urban Optiques team is to raise $1,000 dollars in the next 48 hours.  So let’s get started!

We Just Added More than 30 New Chrome Hearts Eyeglasses and Sunglasses to the Urban Optiques Collection! Be Sure to Stop in and Check Them Out …

For the past few weeks, it’s been Chrome Hearts heaven around Urban Optiques.

We’ve just received our last shipment of new 2011 Chrome Hearts Eyewear models and we’re already seeing Chrome Hearts devotees come out of the woodwork to snatch up the latest, and hottest new models from the L.A.-based luxury eyewear maker.

The addition of more than 30 new models to our existing inventory makes the Urban Optiques Chrome Hearts Eyewear Collection the largest and deepest in Michigan (there is only one other eyewear boutique in Metro-Detroit authorized to carry them.)

This month’s 944 Detroit Swag Giveaway Features a Amazing Pair of Special Edition Badgley Mischka Boyd Sunglasses from Urban Optiques.  Enter Now for Your Chance to Win Them!

Okay, summer is pretty much over, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of sun-filled mornings and afternoons ahead of you requiring a great pair of shades.

In celebration of the Fall fashion season, 944 Detroit and Urban Optiques are giving away another fab pair of couture sunglasses:  This time a pair of  Special Edition Badgley Mischka Boyd acetate aviators  with 18K white gold couture lenses valued at $780 dollars.

A unisex sunglass, the Boyd has been spotted on everyone from Brad Pitt to singer Kelly Rowland to models Heidi Klum and Alessandra Ambrosio.  While the Boyd is celeb favorite, no one has yet been seen in the Special Edition version of the Boyd we are giving away this month.  So if you win the Boyd, you’ll be setting the trend here.

How Do I Enter to Win?

Entering for a chance to win these lux sunglasses from Badgley Mischka Eyewear, Urban Optiques and 944 Detroit is easy: Just click over to the 944 Detroit Swag page and fill out the short registration form (it’s only a couple of fields.)  Not only will you be entered in the sunglass giveaway, but you’ll also have a chance at winning a print by emerging local artist Mark Sarmel.