I have recently had trouble sleeping which is not a particularly unusual occurrence for me unfortunately. My insomnia often means that I have a few 'side-effects' to deal with as a result of a complete lack of sleep and one of these is unfortunately very sore, tired eyes.

As I spend a lot of time using the internet and staring at a computer screen - usually for hours at a time - this only really worsens the sore, delicate tired feeling that my eyes suffer from on a regular basis. I find that in times like this the use of some delicate eye drops in my eyes can help to 'perk them up' a little bit and make them feel a bit more awake and refreshed.

I recently visited a local branch of Boots, with the intention of buying one of their own-branded eye drop products to help my sore peepers feel a bit better. Unfortunately, on the day that I visited the store their own-branded range was a bit scarce and I therefore opted for a more well-known (and of course more expensive!) brand, namely the 'Optrex' brand.

There is a whole range of eye care products available to buy from the Optrex brand that are designed to suit a variety of eye problems and complaints, so I had to take a moment to consider which product would suit me best. In the end I decided to buy the 'Optrex Sore Eye Drops' and the main reason for this purchase was the confident claims on the outer packaging; this product was apparently going to "Soothe and Cleanse to provide relief" which was like music to my ears. I quickly swallowed the grumble that had been forming in my throat at the slightly high price tag for the item, and hastily handed over my £4.09 for the drops.

Once I returned home, I read the full product information which comprised of several warnings as to how the product should be stored, when it should be discarded (28 days after it has been opened) and who should and should not use the product. I certainly didn't have any doubt that the product was suitable for me to use and felt that sufficient information was provided for consumers to make an informed choice.

When it came to using the drops, this was very easy to do. I am familiar with using products such as this as I am a bit of an insomniac and am regularly troubled with tired eyes. I have bought many eye drop products over the years and so am very used to dropping liquid into my eyes but if it is a new practice to you then you will probably find that it takes a little bit of time to get used to it. I find that most - if not all - eye drop products are really quite cold feeling when used, so the dropping of freezing cold liquid into ones eye really does need a bit of getting used to!

Anyway, I found the process was fairly easy to do. I thought that the small plastic bottle of Optrex Sore Eye Drops was made of a flexible enough plastic material that I could 'squeeze' the bottle fairly easily which is NOT something that I can say of every eye drop product that I have purchased in the past. I have had lots of problems with the bottles of some bottles being so rigid that it is very difficult to squeeze the bottle gently to dispense a single droplet of liquid at a time, so I was pleased that this was not an issue with the Optrex Sore Eye drops as it is a real bugbear of mine.

The liquid is a clear colour and is very thin in its consistency - in actual fact it looks similar to water. I found that there was no smell or fragrance that I could detect from the drops when I was dropping them. I also found that the liquid felt extremely cold when it was dropped into my poor peeper, but this was to be expected given my past experience with products like this. I found that the drops were easy to dispense into my eyes with the help of the slightly 'slim line' nozzle design on the end of the plastic bottle.

After dropping the eye drop solution into each eye (I just used one drop per eye to start with) my eyes instantly felt very wet as you would imagine, and they begun to water slightly, but this is not a particularly unusual occurrence given the coldness of the drops. After the watering subsided a little, I could feel that my eyes did feel very slightly refreshed but to me the sort of irritated, tired, 'scratchy' feeling was still evident.

After a little time, I found that the tight sore feeling I had been experiencing in my eyes had returned altogether, as if the first slightly refreshing effects of the eye drops had subsided. I certainly felt that any benefit from using the drops was extremely short-lived and only actually lasted around an hour or so. At first I put this down to only having used one drop, so the next couple of times I used them I put two or three drops into each eye but to be honest I didn't find that it made the slightest bit of difference.

Anybody who regularly places a hot wet flannel gently on their sore eyes to give them a sort of 'pick me up' will understand what I mean if I explain about the instantaneous soothing effect that this has. Well, if this feeling is familiar to you then you will know how nice it can feel to have your tired sore eyes feel soothed and freshened gently. To be quite frank, I would have been better saving my money and sticking with the hot flannel technique as I found the results from the Optrex drops didn't do much extra at all to ease the soreness of my poor peepers.

I did continue to use the drops for around five days before finally giving up and throwing them in the bin. It has put me off from trying other items from the brand slightly, as I feel for the money spent I should have experienced more than a short-term relief. I didn't think that the product worked particularly effectively, nor did the initial, slightly refreshing feeling hang around long enough to be worthwhile. All in all, I was highly disappointed with the Optrex drops and would not recommend them, nor will I buy them in future.

In case it is relevant to consumers, the Optrex Sore Eye drops are suitable for use by contact lens wearers.

There is a whole range of eye care products available in the Optrex range, many of which can be found in Boots stores. Many of the products are also available to buy from the Boots website which can be found at www.boots.com.