How To Wear Face Masks Without Fogging Up Your Glasses
Now that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises everyone to wear a face mask in public during the coronavirus pandemic to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the general population is adjusting to the idea of wearing masks when it’s absolutely necessary to leave home. But this can pose a problem for people who wear glasses.
The warm breath that escapes through the top of a loose-fitting mask inevitably fogs up the lenses of glasses, making them hard to see through.
Fortunately, solutions exist to deal with this. Try the tricks below and see which works best for you. Results will vary based on the shape of your face mask, your bone structure, the temperature and other factors.
Why Glasses Fog Up While Wearing A Face Mask
Plenty of tutorials demonstrate how to sew your own face mask, how to make one without sewing and even how to make one with nothing but a bandana and rubber bands. But not all of these DIY masks fit snugly, and that’s where the problem starts.
(If you want to make a form-fitting face mask, try a pattern like this one from Juliana Sohn.)
Here’s how it happens: Your mask directs your hot, moist breath upward onto the cool lenses. It’s like when your glasses fog up when you come inside after being out in the cold. The water vapor in your breath condenses on the lenses, and surface tension causes the droplets to stay on the glass. Even if you wipe the droplets off your glasses, they’ll continue to form as you breathe.
Let’s take a look at three easy ways to deal with this problem, on multiple fronts.
1. Wash your lenses with soapy water.
A 2011 study in a medical journal found that doctors whose glasses fogged up under surgical masks were able to solve the problem with a soapy pre-surgery wash.
“Immediately before wearing a face mask, wash the spectacles with soapy water and shake off the excess. Then, let the spectacles air dry or gently dry off the lenses with a soft tissue before putting them back on. Now...
