Swimming goggles

Training, racing, mask or Swedish: which type is right for you

For everyday use, training goggles. For doing sets and getting out of the water in under a minute, racing goggles. For spending a long time in the water without them pinching, a mask. The difference between them all is just one: how much rubber there is between the plastic and your face.

The tighter it is, the more comfortable and less hydrodynamic; the looser, the opposite. Racing goggles have the lens almost flush against the eye socket: low profile, little peripheral vision, and you take them off as soon as you're done. Training goggles have more rubber, can be worn for an hour straight, and last longer. The mask comes from diving: it covers more of the face, provides a wider field of vision and comfort, and pays for it in volume in the water. Recreational ones, for the beach and holidays, seal worse and last less.

The World Aquatics regulations back that axis from the other side: goggles must protect the eyes and ensure visibility, and their design cannot seek a hydrodynamic advantage.

Swedish goggles are a separate case. They have no seal: the plastic rests directly on the bone of the eye socket, and that's why they are among the smallest and those that give the most field of vision. They are sold unassembled: two cups, a latex strip, and a nose bridge cord that you cut to size. That's why they have been in the elite locker room since the seventies, and that's why anyone who buys them expecting to put them on and get in the water will be disappointed. The name comes from the goggles made by a Swedish company, founded in 1974 by a swimmer and national coach. The ones in our collection are from Speedo.

Children's goggles follow the same logic with smaller fits. In the collection you can find them as junior and infant.

The three-second test: how to know if goggles fit your face

Rest the cups on your eyes without passing the strap behind your head. If they hold on their own for two or three seconds by suction, they fit your face. If they fall, no strap tension is going to fix it.

The strap does not seal: it only keeps the goggles in place. The seal comes from the suction of the rubber.

That's why marks around the eyes are not a sign that the goggles seal well: they are a sign that you have tightened the strap to compensate for a fit that is not yours, and the skin around the eye is among the thinnest on the body. The correct tension is the one that lets you fit a finger behind your head.

If water still gets in with the correct suction, the problem is the fit or the nose bridge, not the strap. Change the model, not the adjustment.

Why goggles fog up and what anti-fog does

They fog up because the air inside heats up with your face and the lens is cold from the water: the steam condenses into tiny droplets and those droplets scatter the light. It's not dirt, it's condensation.

Anti-fog does not repel water: it spreads it. It is a layer that attracts water to the inner surface of the lens, and turns the droplets into a thin and transparent film. The lens gets wet the same way; it changes the way it gets wet.

And that layer wears out, because it is a layer. Three things take it away: chlorine, session after session; cleaning with soap, detergent, or alcohol; and the finger. Rubbing the inside of the fogged lens is the fastest way to ruin the anti-fog forever. Speedo says it in its care guide: do not rub the inner surface.

When the factory anti-fog runs out, the goggles are not broken. It is restored with an anti-fog spray, which is what Speedo itself recommends using when the original layer is gone. Count on it happening: anti-fog is a consumable, not a permanent feature.

Clear, tinted, mirrored, or polarized lens: which one for your pool

Indoor pool: clear lens. Outdoors in the sun: mirrored. Open water: polarized. If in doubt, clear: it's the one almost everyone who swims in a pool needs.

The clear one lets all the light through. The tinted one lowers the intensity without changing the colors, for outdoors with medium light or very well-lit indoor pools. The mirrored one reflects the light before it enters and is the darkest: it's for swimming in the sun, and for backstroke, which is swimming while looking at the sky. Amber or orange lightens and gives contrast in poor light or murky water.

Polarized is something else. It doesn't lower the brightness: it cuts the reflection of the water, which is the real problem in open water and triathlon. Tint, mirror, and polarized are not three degrees of the same thing: they solve different problems. In our collection there are no polarized ones: for open water, the closest are the mirrored ones, which also reduce reflection.

There is a specific international standard for swimming goggles, ISO 18527-3, and World Aquatics accepts goggles certified with it as a fast track to approve them in the competitions where that approval is required: the Olympic Games and its own events.

And the warning that prevents a return: mirrored goggles in an indoor pool look dark. If you swim indoors, don't buy them for the color.

Prescription goggles: how to choose the diopter

They are bought in steps of 0.50 diopters, like reading glasses from the pharmacy, and it is rounded down. If your prescription gives -2.75, you take -2.50, not -3.00.

Two reasons to round down: being under-corrected tires the eyes less than over-correcting, and the water provides some magnification on its own. The calculation, if your prescription has cylinder: sphere plus half the cylinder. And each eye separately if the prescription is different; that's why in our catalog the frame and the lenses of the Speedo optical system are bought separately.

The limitation you need to know before buying: prescription goggles sold in steps correct myopia and hyperopia, not astigmatism. If your problem is astigmatism, they are not your product.

None of this is optical advice: it's how the product works. If you have doubts about your prescription, consult your optician.

Complete your equipment

If you are going to renew something else, you have swimming caps, nose clips and earplugs, swimming training equipment, pool flip-flops and towels.

Unsure between two models? Write to us and we will tell you which one seals better with your face.

Guide updated in September 2026.