You like the way glass looks? Think colors are cool? Me too! So I bought these glasses to keep me from going blind. Glass is dangerous, it can explode sending micro shards flying in every direction or burn a hole through your retina from being so bright. It's similar to welding metal but not as crazy. They aren't as protective against dark colors like black, red, blue, or brown because those usually have crazy mixtures of metals that emit stronger UV rays. To protect yourself from all of that, Boro lampworking, and prolonged torch time (hours), you should get the shade #3 glasses. You get used to the darker shade pretty quickly, worst case buy an additional light.