Both are types of soft lens which are used to enhance or change the eye's colour. "Tinted" lenses are just that - tinted. This means they are good at enhancing light coloured eyes and can darken light eyes with brown or hazel tints. However, if your eye colour is naturally quite dark, then tinted lenses will have no visible affect on their colour. Instead you may need to use "Coloured" lenses. These have a special coloured pattern printed onto the lens which is opaque. In other words, you cannot see through the coloured parts to see the natural eye colour. Because of this coloured lenses change even very dark coloured eyes, and work very well on light eyes too. You cannot get tinted or coloured gas permeable lenses as they do not cover all of the iris (the coloured part of the eye) and so would not change the eye colour. A lot of new lenses - soft and gas permeable, now come with a "handling tint". This is not on the lens for cosmetic reasons, but to help you see the lens more easily and is not dark enough to affect most eyes.