TOMAHAWK SHADES REVIEW
Check out my YouTube video about Tomahawk shades to hear and see what I think. If you just want to read you can scroll past the video.
Tomahawk Shades are a lifestyle sunglasses brand that boasts their many different styles, partnerships, limited editions, and high profile brand ambassadors and claim to sell at a much lower price than other “luxury” brands. This approach is great an all, but how are the actual shades? At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.
Tomahawk sent me 2 pairs of sunglasses to review. They call them the Hellcats and the Stonewalls. The Hellcats are more of an outdoor/active lifestyle type akin to Okley’s more popular styles, where the Stonewalls are aviator inspired. In general, both sets of sunglasses had a high level of build quality and attention to detail, something I’ve had some trouble with from other brands with a similar strategy to Tomahawk. The company has a great warrenty/replacement program that allows you to replace a broken or stolen pair of sunglasses at a much lower price than the original pair, no questions asked. You can do this up to 2 times before having to start over and get a new pair. For me this takes a lot of the stress out of owning and wearing a pair of sunglasses. Aside from sunglasses they also sell blue light filtering glasses and apparel, but that’s not what we’re talking about today so you’ll have to check that out for yourself.
Lets go through each of these two pairs in a little more detail because they are VERY different pairs of sunglases. In the process of evaluating these sunglasses, I took a 14 hour each way road trip, and a week in a very warm and sunny location. Needless to say I got plenty of time wearing these to form a pretty solid opinion.
Hellcats
This pair is part of their “Warpig” class of shades. Basically “Warpig” denotes the frame design, and “Hellcats” is the exact model (green, non-polarized, mirrored lenses). The overall build of the sunglasses was good. They is a single screw hinge that is easily adjustable using a normal glasses sized screw driver. The hinges are tight, but not too tight, making them perfect for clipping on to my collar without worry of losing them due to the hinges inadvertently coming open. The hinges also stayed at the same tightness from the time I took them out of the box to the time I wrote this review, which is more than I can say for some other brands * cough Shady Rays cough. The Hellcats seemed to be pretty durable as well, showing no serious signs of wear beyond one scratch on the lens after going to the beach, swimming in the pool, and being thrown into bags and cup holders for a month.
The fit is where things could go either way depending on how your head is shaped. The sunglasses were a little tight on my face, but not to the point of being uncomfortable or hurting. I wore them for hours on end during my road trip and they never hurt. Any tighter though and I wouldn’t have been able to wear them for more than a few hours. Fit is very subjective, so take this with a grain of salt, but if you have a big head I would look at a different style.
Finally, the lenses. This is where the Hellcats leave a bit to be desired. I like that they are mirrored (personal preference) and UV rated, but they are not polarized, which to me is a drawback. Admittedly this is totally personal preference, and some might like them without polarization. The lenses also turn everything purple when looking through them. My eyes did adjust to this and everything looked normal after a few minutes.
The Stonewalls are part of their aviator inspired “Recon Class”, and I’ll say right off the bat. I like these. All of the good things I mentioned for the Hellcats hold true for these as well. Great build quality, durability, and attention to detail. However these excel in a few areas that the Hellcats didn’t.
The hinges on this pair are spring loaded, making them equally as good at holding on to my shirt when clipped onto my collar as the Hellcats, but they are much more comfortable. The hinges have quite a bit of give to them making sure that they are always snug on your face, but never too tight. I found them to be very comfortable when being worn for long periods of time. A side benefit is that they are harder to break when in the hands of a curious toddler (dad problems).
The lenses on the Stonewalls are very good as well. They have no noticeable distortion and don’t discolor your vision like the hellcats did. The lenses on these are also polarized, which in my opinion puts them in a totally different class than lenses that are not.
Needless to say these are now my everyday pair of sunglasses.
Conclusion
Tomahawk Shades does a good job providing overall value for money when it comes to sunglasses. Their good quality control and attention to detail sets them apart from some of the other brands in their sector, and their replacement policy adds even more value to the product. Overall these are a good choice for an every day pair of sunglasses that you don’t want to worry too much about or pay too much for.
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