Production of optical elements

A method of making an optical element having a corrective focal power comprising:

• laminating a first thermoplastic sheet to one side of a functional member, said functional member having a functional property selected from the group consisting of a polarizing medium, decorative medium, tint medium, color medium, photochromic medium and filtering medium;
• laminating a second thermoplastic sheet to an opposite side of said functional member to form a laminate insert;
• providing a mold having a front concave curved cavity and a back convex curved cavity, a radius of curvature of each of said front and back curved cavities each being set so as to produce said corrective focal power in said optical element;
• placing said laminate insert securely into said front concave curved cavity so as to form a seal between said laminate insert and said front concave curved cavity;
• injecting a molten thermoplastic into said mold against said laminate insert so that said molten thermoplastic creates a layer that is greater in thickness than a thickness of said laminate insert;
• allowing said molten thermoplastic to cool;
• and,
• ejecting said resulting optical element having a corrective focal power from said mold.