Seeing as we’ve had nearly a year of mask-wearing, you’d think that I would have already settled on a favourite face mask to suit my needs. The trouble is, as someone who works from home anyway, I’ve rarely been out of the house during those months, so I haven’t really needed a face mask. But now, I’m keen to go visit my mum once the region returns to tier 2 so I want to make sure that I’m protected when I head out the door.
After buying and trying many different types of face mask, the issue I’ve found is that most masks aren’t suitable for me when I’m wearing glasses. I don’t know if I’m a particularly heavy-breather, but my glasses fog up within two or three breaths. And then, there was no point wearing glasses because I can’t see through them anyway! AND my glasses slip off my ears easily once those loops are on. Thankfully I’ve found a solution to that problem but more on this later.
Here’s what I have discovered about the best designs for glasses wearers after trying out many masks:
FITTED NOSE STRIP
I’ve discovered through trial-and-error that the bendy wired nose strip is the most essential part of a mask if you’re wearing glasses. That’s the one thing that’ll help you get a close fit across your nose and cheeks to stop hot air escaping upwards and misting up your specs. So it’s worth investing a little more in a mask that you can mould to the contours of your face so that no air escapes. I’ll get straight to the point with the best ones I’ve tried; Wolford Care Masks.
I can shape the wire across my nose and face easily to create an almost air-tight fit. It’s soft and washable and comes in different sizes. I’m an XSS and my husband is a ML – he alaso wears glasses and won’t wear any other masks than his pack of Wolford microfibre denier masks, which are also water-resistant. My favourite is the Lace Silk version of the Wolford Care Mask as it is reversible and can be flipped from plain black to a printed floral lace design (of course you must wash between every use – don’t just turn it inside-out!). This mask is a softer 100% silk finish, which makes it really lightweight and more comfortable to wear against the skin.
After trying so many masks I was surprised at how well this one works with glasses and I’ll probably invest in a few more now that I’ve tried it. However, as a thrifty blogger, I have to mention the price, which ranges from just over £18 to around £30 per mask, depending on whether you buy them individually or in a multipack. But, when I think about the smaller amounts of money I’ve spent on other masks that haven’t been any good, I might as well have put that money together to buy a Wolford mask in the first place. One thing to mention is that it’s a double-layered mask rather than a triple-layer, which might be relevant in terms of protection, but I’ve found that the triple-layer ones can sometimes fray at the edges after use whereas these ones have a stitched hem. I’ve washed the original Care Mask countless times and it still looks good as new.
If you have a mask with a nose strip but it’s still letting air out at the top and fogging up your glasses, try shuffling the mask down your nose a little. It might help to have wire strip closer to the top of your nostrils rather than the bridge of your nose so that it fits snugly across your cheeks beneath your glasses. That said, I’ve tried multiple masks that have nose strips and some are better than others. For example, I bought some cotton ones from Gap in the sale and they don’t block out as much air as I hoped, considering that they have a wired nose strip. They are available in many colours and pretty patterns and have a pocket for filters, so they’re nice for times that I’m wearing contact lenses, but the nose strip doesn’t give me a very close fit across the nose and cheeks.
SIZE MATTERS
I didn’t know it before but apparently, according to mask-sizing-experts, I have a rather small face. I just assumed I was a medium but no. When mask after mask didn’t fit snugly around my face, I’ve has to move down the sizes and am now definitely in the S-XS size bracket. Almost a child! I think that mask size is an important thing to consider whether you’re wearing glasses or not, because it needs to fit close across your cheeks without squashing your nose – ouch! I bought a multipack of size small VitaSheild masks and the fit is ideal but this mask doesn’t have a nose wire so they’re best suited for times when I’m wearing contact lenses.
ADJUSTABLE EAR LOOPS
I’ve also found that having adjustable ear loops makes a big difference in achieving a good fit across your cheeks. Many masks now have little sliders that enable you to shorten or lengthen the loops. The Wolford Lace Silk mask does have adjustable loops which made it easy for me to adjust the ‘One Size’ option to fit my face perfectly. The original black care mask doesn’t so you may need to knot or shorten the ear loops yourself to get a better fit but, that said, the care mask also comes in two sizes so maybe the elastic loops are right for the size that you choose? My husband hasn’t needed to shorten the loops on the ML mask and it still fits closely and his glasses don’t mist up.
GLASSES STRAPS
One of the more frustrating elements of wearing a mask with glasses is just how easily glasses slip off your ears when the mask loop is over them. And I certainly don’t want my glasses to get stratched or broken as they plummet to the floor whenever I look down. So I’ve invested in a pack of glasses straps from Amazon to solve the problem. If you haven’t already see this product, it’s a stretchy neoprene strap that you feed the arms of your glasses into. You can then pull on the strap over the back of your head and it holds your glasses in place over your ears. This was a bit of a game changer when I tried it for the first time as I no longer had to worry about my glasses slipping AND fight with the fog at the same time!
These are just some of the masks I’ve tried and how I’ve personally found them to perform, but of course you might have better success with different masks than I do. It all depends on the size of the mask, the shape of your face, the closeness of the fit so what works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. Even so, please do let me know if you’ve come across any masks that you think are easy to wear with glasses and I’ll check them out 🙂
Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂
