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dreamsharkThis is for you, bibliophile ! For people who are not interested in making masks, the tldr version is: mixed materials are best. Good combinations are a layer of cotton plus a layer of silk or chiffon or polypropylene. For even greater effectiveness, include a pocket for a removable filter of some kind of non-woven material. Fit, breathability, and adjustability are also important. And yes, if you follow these guidelines you will end up with a mask that protects the wearer as well as other people.
Here's my favorite Gen 2 mask. The outer layer is a densely woven cotton. Inner layer is an unusually soft piece of chiffon, which both provides electrostatic filtering and is outstandingly breathable. There's a filter pocket currently holding a piece of soft felt. The design is super adjustable, which allows me to get a close fit at the sides and top. The side channels not only allow any kind of fastener to be used, they can be scrunched down as needed to get the perfect fit at the sides. And there's a pipe cleaner in the top edge for fitting around the nose.
More detailed info and links below the pictures. If you would like me to make you a mask, let me know.
bibliophile ! For people who are not interested in making masks, the tldr version is: mixed materials are best. Good combinations are a layer of cotton plus a layer of silk or chiffon or polypropylene. For even greater effectiveness, include a pocket for a removable filter of some kind of non-woven material. Fit, breathability, and adjustability are also important. And yes, if you follow these guidelines you will end up with a mask that protects the wearer as well as other people.Here's my favorite Gen 2 mask. The outer layer is a densely woven cotton. Inner layer is an unusually soft piece of chiffon, which both provides electrostatic filtering and is outstandingly breathable. There's a filter pocket currently holding a piece of soft felt. The design is super adjustable, which allows me to get a close fit at the sides and top. The side channels not only allow any kind of fastener to be used, they can be scrunched down as needed to get the perfect fit at the sides. And there's a pipe cleaner in the top edge for fitting around the nose.
More detailed info and links below the pictures. If you would like me to make you a mask, let me know.
The point of using mixed materials is to get different types of filtering. Tightly woven cotton is good at mechanical filtering (for larger droplets). But if you add a layer of a "negatively charged material" you get electrostatic filtering that stops smaller particles. And a non-woven filter material (such as felt, polypropylene, interfacing) provides even more mechanical filtering without affecting breathability very much. That's important because if you overdo the dense cotton and make the mask too hard to breathe through you just end up drawing air in around the sides and sabotaging the whole filtering thing. That's also why all the adjustability features are important: you need a good fit.
Here's a link to an article from a couple of months ago by a textile scientist. Note that she did not do any filtering experiments, just analyzed existing medical masks and applied her specialized knowledge of fabrics to make some suggestions. I also note that although she may know a lot about the chemical composition of fabrics, she doesn't appear to know much about sewing. She seems to think that you would have to throw away mask components made from interfacing after each use, which makes no sense. Interfacing is meant to be sewn into clothing to stiffen it, and is (of course) perfectly washable. It's too stiff to MAKE a mask from, but would make a perfectly fine permanent filter layer. She has some interesting suggestions for materials that I hadn't thought of or seen elsewhere.
Here's a link to an article from a couple of months ago by a textile scientist. Note that she did not do any filtering experiments, just analyzed existing medical masks and applied her specialized knowledge of fabrics to make some suggestions. I also note that although she may know a lot about the chemical composition of fabrics, she doesn't appear to know much about sewing. She seems to think that you would have to throw away mask components made from interfacing after each use, which makes no sense. Interfacing is meant to be sewn into clothing to stiffen it, and is (of course) perfectly washable. It's too stiff to MAKE a mask from, but would make a perfectly fine permanent filter layer. She has some interesting suggestions for materials that I hadn't thought of or seen elsewhere.
And here's a link to the recently released ACS study that recommends mixed fabrics. These guys did actual studies, but the kind where you blow stuff through a swatch of fabric rather than sewing it into masks. I assume that's why they make no suggestions about the specific order of the materials (inner/outer layers) and don't even get into the "protects the wearer" vs "protects others" controversy. I was impressed by how closely the results matched the textile scientist's hypothetical analysis. I guess there really is such a thing as "negatively charged fabric." Huh.
Here's a link to my mask gallery. My favorite masks are at the top. Construction notes are in the (i) Info field. Here's some of the combinations of materials that I've used since I started Gen 2.
Here's a link to my mask gallery. My favorite masks are at the top. Construction notes are in the (i) Info field. Here's some of the combinations of materials that I've used since I started Gen 2.
- Ultimate Music Mask (featured above): quilters cotton/chiffon with felt filter
- Japan Scarf Mask: Heavy silk scarf for outer layer+ white cotton inner layer. My default non-intrusive filter is a piece of polypropylene from reusable shopping bag.
- Forest Silk Mask: 3 layers of delicate silk + forest green poly/cotton blend. Polypropylene filter
- B/W Music Mask: Woven cotton outer layer+ medium heavy black silk inner. No filter at the moment for coolth
- I've retrofitted some of my older all-cotton masks with electrostatic filters: either a couple of layers of polypropylene or (my latest brainstorm) crumpled pieces of light silk from torn up old scarves. Adds electrostatic filtering with practically no weight and makes the mask soft and puffy. And my refusal to throw away those tattered old silk scarves is finally vindicated!
