The Best Materials To Use For A Homemade Face Mask
As we all know by now, the CDC is recommending that everyone wear some sort of face covering when you go out in public.
But, since there are no masks ANYWHERE, a lot of people have had to resort to making their own masks at home.
What are the best fabrics to use for making a homemade face mask?
There was a study done in 2013 that tested several fabrics for how well they kept out droplet particles on certain materials, and here is what they found worked best.
Here’s The Best Materials For Making A Face Mask At Home
1) Surgical Masks — Of course. This was a given.
2) Vacuum Cleaner Bags — The filtration on these bags is great, but they can be hard to breathe through.
3) Tea Towel — The CDC recommends using a cotton material, and most tea towels are made of a cotton fabric.
4) Cotton Mix — This goes along with the CDC recommendation. A cotton fabric is the way to go.
5) Cotton T-Shirt — Also a fabric recommended by the CDC. They even have a mask pattern on their website that uses a Cotton T-Shirt.
6) Antimicrobial Pillowcase — My guess would be that the antimicrobial factor plays a lot into why this is effective.
7) Scarf — It is important to note here, they don’t say WHAT KIND of scarf. Please don’t go crochet yourself a face mask. Grab a cotton or cotton blend scarf. We KNOW the CDC recommends cotton.
8) Pillowcase — Just a regular pillowcase. There are SO many kinds of pillowcases. There are cotton, silk, microfiber, and even polyester blends. Be safe, and stick with the CDC recommendations of cotton fabric here.
9) Linen — Now we are down to being only about 60% effective, according to the study. Use linen ONLY if you don’t have other material.
10) Silk — This fabric may not be as breathable, and, according to the study, it is only about 54 – 58% effective. But, something is better than nothing.
There is also research, not done by a scientific lab, that shows that those blue shop towel may be more effective than cotton at blocking out particles.
BUT — The CDC recommends cotton. If you have cotton, go with layered cotton!
