The Best Ski Goggles for Beginners and Beyond
These are categorically the best ski goggles for beginners, intermediates and possibly even beyond (I'll let you know when I get there).
Behold, the Outdoor Master Wide Angle Ski Goggles - 
I've had massive problems with goggles in the past and for the first couple of years I went skiing, I made do with sunglasses alone, which I quickly discovered is far from ideal. Turns out, being able to see more of the mountain around you helps your skiing a lot.
Do you need ski goggles to go skiing?
The technical answer to whether you need special ski goggles to go skiing is absolutely a no. I used to just ski in sunglasses, and this was driven by the fact that the first set of goggles I did buy, which cost the princely sum of about £4.99, were absolutely terrible and I thought that was just goggles in general.
So yes, you can come down the mountain in just sunglasses. Maybe you don't even go for sunglasses, and you do what one elderly gentleman I saw last time I went did and just ski with nothing over his eyes, no hat, no helmet, and what looked like denim jeans. In a blizzard. He didn't look like he was having fun, but he was also possibly mostly fine.
Why should you wear a decent pair of goggles when you go skiing?
A decent pair of skiing goggles allows you much greater visibility. The aforementioned Outdoor Master Ski Goggles have that option of swappable lenses which mean that visibility can be tweaked depending on if the sun is out or if the snow is out too. They also only tend to fog up if you've put them on wrong and somehow have a nostril inside the goggles and the foam padding around the edge appears to be suitably durable and does not rapidly deteriorate like some pairs I've seen.
Do the detachable lenses detach on their own terms?
The Outdoor Master goggles' lenses that you can get to give you a broader range of UV protection depending on the weather generally cost around about £20 each, so you wouldn't want to be in the habit of losing them on the slopes whenever you take a particularly hard fall or anything like that, so it's reassuring that the way they lock in is surprisingly secure.
They are held in the frame by very strong magnets. Last time I swapped my lenses around, I trapped a lock of hair between the frame and the lens and then I removed the goggles later on, it was not the lens that popped out but the tuft of hair that tore out of my scalp instead.
The only thing to watch out for is if you accidentally go out with two lenses on the frame, with one of them far more lightly attached over the top of the first one - this second lens is of course far more likely to pop out!
Despite their secure magnet locking, they are also easy to swap out whilst using clumsy ski gloves, they just require the frame to flex slightly and they can be easily removed and replaced.
Are there any downsides to these goggles?
Honestly I don't know. I've not found any yet. Maybe they wear out if you're going skiing for an entire season, or ploughing head first down black runs all the time and like to break your fall with your face, but as I've not subjected these to this level of stress testing I can't guarantee that one either way. The official site proudly lists them as a s supplier of the US olympic ski team, so one would assume that they probably put them through their paces more than a casual intermediate skier like me.
These goggles aren't the absolute cheapest you can get, but they feel extremely futureproof and even give off the look of some of the triple figure models with their 360 wrap-around design. They even have that more premium feel to them with the packaging they come in, shipping with a nice case to keep them save and a soft bag to protect the lens (which for me fits neatly inside a bumbag so I don't need to cart an entire rucksack around with me just to carry a spare lens).
I really can't recommend these Outdoor Master ski goggles enough. They made my skiing so much better just by being able to see more and be more comfortable in general and they are by far and away one of the first pieces of kit I would recommend to anyone that has tried skiing and wants to start building up their gear over time.
