Masks and glasses

[HathorX]

I have dreadful vision and recently had to get bifocals so my glasses are quite big. I've tried a few styles of cloth mask but my glasses steam up even on warm days.

Please could a glasses-wearer recommend a mask style that doesn't cause glasses to steam up? I guess it needs to fit close to the nose, is that even possible if you want a cloth mask?

I saw the other day that if you twist the ear elastic over so it is crossed it pulls it closer to your face. Mine is too short so just pulled my ear and popped off though.

Same problem here, so watching with interest.

I made myself a cloth mask and stitched a pipe cleaner into it at the top so that I can mold it around my nose and cheeks. It's not perfect, but it an awful lot better than any of the bought ones I had. My sister swears by putting shaving foam on her lenses and then rinsing it off. Apparently it leaves a film that stops them steaming up.

Rub a bar of hand soap on your glasses then rub clear with your normal cloth. It works for a few hours or so before you need to repeat (maybe longer if you don't also have a baby touching your glasses all day long too).

Doesn't matter the type of mask etc!

I saw a video on line about folding a tissue and putting it on the nose bridge, worked for me

Like the previous poster, I have made masks that have a pipe cleaner at the top, the wire makes the mask fit much more closely around your nose and I don't have any problems with steamed up glasses.

My first ones had a small bit of wire and I steamed up a lot. I sewed a longer channel and popped a pipe cleaner in and it’s been TONNES better

I wear the mask high up on my face with my glasses resting on it. Nose wire. I have some masks where the untied elastic threads through a channel on each side of the mask so can be pulled tightly and adjusted. With the more standard masks I wear a ribbon threaded through the ear loops and then tie it around the back of my head/ neck to pull it in more tightly.

hand soap or shaving foam massaged into lenses then
polished off will help hugely, may have to repeat during day but works for me

A user's guide to wearing a face mask to the shops

It's a worry that has been burdening many spectacle-wearers. It's a legitimate one, too - lenses can steam up when you wear a mask because your warm breath comes out of the top of the mask, hitting the cooler lenses and clouding them up.

The extra moisture can also mean that nose pads become slippery and your frames glasses slide down your face.

The key is to try, if possible, to make sure there aren't any gaps for the air to escape around your nose and cheeks. You could try tucking the mask behind your glasses, or tucking some tissue inside the top of the covering.

The opticians Specsavers recommends resting your glasses on top of your mask to help seal any gap, or using a piece of surgical tape to secure the mask to the bridge of your nose.

Failing that you could try washing your glasses in soapy water to stop them misting up.

Tissue on bridge of nose works well

I have a pleated one that I pull up to tuck under my glasses on the bridge of my nose and I’ve only had an issue with it steaming up once when it’d slipped down

They can still fog up if the highest nose point is below your glasses, but if you pull the face cover up high and glasses low it seems to work. Saying that I only wear rubbish sunglasses so I don't know about the fit with proper eye glasses! These are the style I have in my Folksy shop

Bit of a personal plug  but I'm making triple layer face covers with nose wires!

folksy.com/shops/SusanneBurgessMillinery/collections/290438-face-covers

Anti-mist sprays for glasses are readily available on Amazon and they do work. Also any dive shop will stock anti-mist paste

I tape mine on using porous tape. The metal bit works as well, but hurts my nose if its on for too long

I’m currently just taking my glasses off... I can see without them, I just squint a lot and some things are a bit blurry, lol.

So far putting them on over the mask doesn’t work as to do that the mask is in my eyes...

But I’m waiting on a different fitting one arriving.

Wear the mask with the glasses resting on it. This helps to seal it to your face better and your glasses won't be as likely to steam up.