Wearing the mask with glasses

The Quarantine Zone
1

Lots of stores have “No mask, no service” signs in the windows. No heavy enforcement, but I’m wearing mine all the time anyway. And I need it for the delivery job I’ve been doing while I’m on furlough. Problem is, I drive to places in my car without the mask on, but wearing my glasses, then when I’m ready to go into the store, grab a mask from my glove compartment, put it on, and push my glasses onto my head.

I realize this makes the mask a lot less effective, but I don’t have a box of them, and am not able to put on a fresh one every time, and I can’t wear one all the time, because it fogs up my glasses. Bottom line is, I can’t see to drive with a mask on. Seriously, it’s dangerous. The odds of me clipping a pedestrian who crosses against a light when I’m not wearing my glasses is much greater than those that I give someone COVID-19 from improper mask procedures.

But I see lots of people wearing masks with glasses and not having fog-up. What’s the secret? I’ve tried washing them with soap, with Rain-X, and a couple of other tips from the internet, and none have worked. I’ve put the mask on the outside of the glasses, and on the inside.

I ordered a ventilated mask with a snugger fit, but it hasn’t come yet, and it may be another week before it gets here. By then the governor’s mask order may be lifted. I still may need it for work, though. When the preschool opens back up, they may decide to have us wear masks. I can stumble through the day without my glasses if I have to, but I’d rather not.

My distance vision is 20/100 in one eye, and 20/40 in the other. This means that I am getting by pretty much with just using the better eye when I don’t wear my glasses, and when I don’t wear them for an extended period of time, I get headaches from eyestrain. My glasses also have reading lenses. I can read normal print, but it gets tiring after a while, and I absolutely cannot read fine print.

If anyone has any tips for keeping glasses from fogging up from masks, please share. I will try practically anything.

MODS: I put this in GQ, because I’m hoping people will post suggestions, and not bog down the thread with lots of discussions that are semi-on topic. However, if you think it goes in IMHO, that’s fine. I actually wrote the post in Word while I debated where to put it.

Oh, and one thing: DO NOT SUGGEST GETTING CONTACTS. I cannot wear contacts, because I have a dry eye condition.

2

If it has a nose wire, make sure it’s pinched snugly.

Also, if you can change your breathing pattern to exhale with a kind of open puckered lip shape to your mouth, that should help direct flow of the exhale through the mask, rather than having it seep out the upper edge and fogging your glasses.

Edit: fixing auto correct

3

I wear cloth masks. I bring the cloth up fairly far on my nose and then keep the glasses lower on my nose so there is a little more room between my glasses and my eyes; that’s what works for me.
I read somewhere else that someone was using medical tape to hold the mask to their face on top to help with the fogging. I haven’t had to try that myself, but I can imagine it would work.

4

That’s an excellent idea, and I have some tape already. I’ll try that.

I tried that, and unfortunately, that means I can’t use the reading lenses on my glasses.

5

This is what has worked best for me.

6

I just wear my glasses further down my nose and ensure it is on top of the mask. Seems to work for the short time I am in a store but I would not want to do that all day.

7

There was a thread earlier in this mess about glasses. It has some good tips.

**puzzlegal **suggested making a loop out of nylon stocking to hold it tight.

Stranger on a Train suggested paper binders as a nose wire if you don’t have one. I tried this and it helps a lot! (I sewed it on to my mask, it doesn’t really work otherwise). Works fine for sitting down in a meeting.

**Ethilrist **suggested a folded up tissue across your nose. I’ve tried this in conjunction with the above nose wire, and this is my best solution for when I’m shopping.

8

I haven’t had much of a difficulty with my glasses fogging. I used traditional techniques for defogging a scuba mask:
[ul]
[li]Rub lenses with baby shampoo. Wash clean with water.[/li][li]Optional - rub with spit or commercial defog solutions. Wash clean with water.[/ul][/li]
For a tighter fitting mask you might want to try this trick I read about using a chain of rubber bands. Cheap and easy to try, but I haven’t done so myself.

9

Just curious why driving unmasked in the car makes the mask in the store less effective. I’m often amused at people driving alone in their cars, masked. But perhaps I’m missing something.

I have the same problem w/ glasses/mask. My sole solution to date has been to make store visits as infrequent and brief as possible.

10

The big benefit to wearing a mask is that if you are asymptomatic, a lot of your respiratory droplets carrying covid get stuck in and on the mask. Some still escape into the air but a lot stay on the mask. If you are taking your mask off and on repeatedly, you are inevitably transferring some amount of the virus from the mask to your hands where you can then leave it on door handles, shelves, products you pick up and then put back down, etc. Really, you should wash your hands very good at home, put a clean mask on holding it by the earloops, leave it on for the duration of your outing and remove it when you get home by holding it by the earloops (then wash your hands immediately) and washing or sterilizing it before subsequent use.

11

Wash your glasses in soapy water and let them air dry, this creates a film on the glasses that prevents fogging.

12

I’ve had good success on scuba masks and paintball masks using Cat Crap. Liquid soap works, too, but doesn’t last as long.

13

I found this was a big help. If I pinch the nose wire, it keeps air from going up when I exhale and that stops the fogging of my glasses.

14

Doesn’t work for me. Might be a Jewish thing.

15

I make my own masks and when I do so I put an extra fold of fabric at the top that helps direct exhaled air downward. It’s not perfect, but it helps.

A lot of lenses these days have coatings that render the old-school tricks like Rain-X and soap useless.

16

Keep in mind that if your glasses are fogging up, it’s an indication that there are gaps in the mask which can let in unfiltered air. The gaps along your nose are what are causing your glasses to fog. A properly fitting mask would not let air pass that way. Rather than trying to put an anti-fog coating on your glasses, you should really be striving to fix the fit of your mask. Gaps in the mask are opportunities for the virus to pass through easily.

The shape of your face can affect how well a mask fits. Faces can be wide, narrow, high/low cheekbones, sharp/flat nose, etc. All of those things affect how snugly the mask may fit. The people with glasses that don’t fog might just be lucky that their mask fits snugly along the top.

One thing you can try is to figure out ways to make the mask fit snugger on your face. If you have ear loops, pull the loops behind your head and see if the mask seals better. If that works, figure out a way to clip those loops behind your head. Hopefully you can tweak the mask so that all the air passes through the surface of the mask rather than passing through gaps along the edges.

17

Yes indeed.

I too wear glasses, and am completely non-functional without them. I simply do not have the option to not wear them.

I’ve been using KN-95 masks, which are found fairly easily around here. I treat glasses-fogging as an indicator that the mask isn’t on right, and fiddle with the mask and the metal strip that bends over the nose until I get it right.

I expect it’s harder to get a plain surgical mask to seal, since I don’t think they were designed to seal at all. If those were the only masks I had, and I had to be in a crowded place, I’d use surgical tape.

18

You’re getting unfiltered air regardless. How many times does it have to be explained by health professionals that properly worn surgical masks are to protect others, not the wearer. Jesus christ.

19

Jesus Christ yourself. I’m well aware of that, which is why, as I said, I wear KN-95 masks when I’m out and about.

That said, I’d use tape if I were wearing a surgical mask, in the hope that it would increase the protection *others *get from my surgical mask. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, I don’t know.

20

Unless you’re wearing a military gas mask with lots of carbon in their filters, there are always going to be leaks. The idea is to catch the shit that you exhale directly in front of you, which actually makes military gas masks not effective (what you exhale isn’t filtered).