What can you do to keep your mask from fogging your glasses?

There is no question that this year is one for the history books.  When this year started, it was 2020.....in my mind, the year of the Eye Doctor.  I was anticipating running all sorts of promotions to capitalize on all the eye jokes and puns related to 2020.  However, COVID-19 has turned the world up on its end.  It has created a new normal and new reality that we all have had to adjust to.  One of those adjustments has been wearing masks. 

At our office, we all wear masks and gloves.  We also ask all patients and customers to wear masks.  The mask protects other people from us, so we wear the mask to show you how much we care about you as a customer.  With these masks comes a problem of foggy glasses.

My husband works from home and so I have been the one that has done most of the grocery shopping.  This last week, he was stir crazy, so he decided he would go.  He donned his mask and headed out.  He didn’t even make it out the door before his glasses were too foggy to see out of.

So, what can you do?  The glasses fog because the air is being pushed upward behind the mask and into the glasses.  Your warm breath causes condensation on the dust particles on the glasses.  You have a few options.  If you can put a bendable metal strip around the nose to tighten it and force that air out the side, that helps.  Another trick is one that I have used when I would swim.  If you take dish soap and rub it on the inside and outside of the lenses and then rinse it off, it greatly reduces the surface tension and causes less condensation on the glasses.   Lastly, you can pull the mask up higher and set the bottom of the glasses over the top of the mask.  This also re-directs the airflow away from the lenses of the glasses.   None of these suggestions are the perfect answer…….but nothing ever is, especially in this new post-COVID-19 world.  Stay Safe!!