What are you doing with your cloth masks?

[Hilltopmom]

We use disposables now when we mask.

what are you doing with your cloth masks? We have so many from a family of 4 who wore them for work and school. I hate to get rid of them in case… I don’t know… we need them again or disposables become hard to get again. But if cloth aren’t effective anyways…

[cintinative]

I have wondered the same thing. I have so many of them! 

[Ethel Mertz]

We’re hanging on to ours.

[QueenCat]

One is going into my scrapbook album, along with some written thoughts about what life was like in the beginning of Covid and pics of the family doing things with masks on.

[regentrude]

I keep mine. They are still helpful against larger particles like smoke, dust, and possibly pollen.

I'll never again mulch leaves without a mask. 

Edited September 3, 2022 by regentrude

[Pawz4me]

We're still using ours. I haven't seen any research that convinces me they're not good enough for our minimal exposure.

And ditto mulching leaves.

[Carrie12345]

Mine are in a bag for “you never know”.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

I threw ours out.  We don’t mask any longer and I figured they were probably dirty and nasty.  I have an endless stream of disposable masks at work if we need some.

I do kind of wonder about the environmental effects of all these disposable masks though.

[Katy]

Washed & some in my purse, some in a container in the back of my car. 

[MEmama]

I'm keeping them. We don’t have many because we switched to KF94s pretty early on and have consistently used those.

I wear one for mowing the grass and doing yard work, when I remember. I figure going forward I’ll always have a stash of various types of masks, disposable gloves and so on in case of future emergencies.

[Farrar]

Souvenirs!

Even for things like leaves and dusting, the disposables are both more comfortable and work more effectively, so I doubt I'll ever use them much again. But I can't quite part with them. I did weed them out.

[MercyA]

We kept all our 3-layer ones, just in case. 

[Lady Florida.]

Right now they're thrown in drawers and other places around the house, depending on whose they are. We switched to KF94 early on and still have a lot of those left. That's all we use. I haven't really thought about what to do with my cloth ones. I did give a few away early on when people were still using cloth ones, mainly because they didn't fit my face and neither dh nor ds wanted them.

[alisoncooks]

We kept a few but chunked the rest. We were actually to the point of no longer masking, but DH just had a bone marrow transplant, so now we’re full on masking in public with n95/running two air purifiers in the house/grocery pickup only. 

[73349]

They're staying in the basket in case we run out of N95s.

[KungFuPanda]

Shove them into clear Christmas tree bulbs and decorate with them. Then, break glass for emergencies. 😷🤣🎄

[mommyoffive]

We donated ours.  We never had good fabric ones and they never fit right.  We went with disposables back in March 2020.

[itsheresomewhere]

I still use mine. I am not masking for most daily outings now.  I use them for work, cleaning out the garage and basement, and during the pollen season. 

[Hilltopmom]

37 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

Shove them into clear Christmas tree bulbs and decorate with them. Then, break glass for emergencies. 😷🤣🎄

You win the internet today 🙂 😂 😷 

[Malory]

I wear them for medical visits as these are the only places still requiring masks. 

[Ditto]

Teen and I continue to mask everywhere we go.  I am keeping and using all of our cloth masks.  I also have a decent supply of disposable ones and use those too.   

Edit:  I wash the cloth masks after each use.  Disposable masks get tossed after one use.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Ditto

[Arcadia]

DS17 and I have two under armor masks and one Daiso mask each. DS17 prefers the under armor masks to the disposal masks in terms of comfort.
The Daiso masks were bought because they are pretty. They do have a filter pocket and came with a PM2.5 filter. I am using mine as a cover over my disposable mask because it helps prevent the disposable masks from dropping. DS17 just like the looks.

Does your cloth masks have a filter pocket? While not perfect, DS17 says the disposable mask, Under Armor mask and Daiso mask all reduce his dust allergies when sorting donated stuff for volunteering work. I actually wear two disposable masks when sorting to reduce my dust allergies else you would hear me coughing and sneezing within a few minutes of unpacking a box of donated books.

[Grace Hopper]

Ours are all laundered and stored in a gallon size ziplock bag, in the linen closet. I figure if there’s another peak and there’s a need for me to be in a populated space, I’ll layer a cloth over a disposable mask. FWIW I’m fully vaxxed and boosted, but got my second booster before the one with the Omincron variant was available. 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Grace Hopper

[Ausmumof3]

using them for hay fever season stuff and dust prevention. The wool ones we got are pretty comfy, I wish we could still use them for covid. They’re much nicer than n95s to wear.

[Clarita]

I keep them. They are comfier than disposables so like other we could use them for other reasons. Also, I keep some just in case in the car if we run out of disposables. The rules around my area get weird so, there are silly mask occasions as well where I just grab the cloth mask instead of burning a disposable. (One of my kids summer camps required parents to have masks on while picking up the kids, where we weren't allowed in the building and had to wait outside for the kids. It was a situation where I'm not within 10ft of anyone except my kids but I had to mask.)

[Ottakee]

I kept one or two of the ones I so diligently made early on.   Keepsakes for the generations to come.

[Annie G]

We tossed some, but kept our favorites. I made all the ones we wore, and just can’t bring myself to buy disposable ones. 

[barnwife]

I still wear mine in some indoor situations, so I haven't gotten rid of any.

[ksr5377]

I kept our favorites for each person. I figure even if we don't need them again, it will be neat for everyone to have one or two for the memories:)

[EKS]

Cloth masks are useless, literally, so if I had any I'd throw them in the garbage.  

[heartlikealion]

I still have some. Maybe I’ll wear to distribute diatomaceous earth. 

[DawnM]

Purse, drawer at work, drawers at home, at least one in each car.

Just in case.

[AbcdeDooDah]

Still wearing them at my college until the 15th🙄

[athena1277]

Ours are hanging in the laundry room since the last time I washed them.  No idea how long ago that was.  The only time I have used them recently was taking dd19 to the doctor in pouring rain, so they had us come in and wear disposable masks because they couldn’t test her in the car.  The same day I took dd6 to the ER for a high fever and they had us wear disposable masks.  In both places only a handful of people, workers and patients, wore masks.

[Melissa in Australia]

15 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

We're still using ours. I haven't seen any research that convinces me they're not good enough for our minimal exposure.

And ditto mulching leaves.

This 

Plus I cannot bring myself to add to the plastic waste by using desposable

[easypeasy]

I had planned to have a ceremonial bonfire, but never could be bothered to do it, lol. So, tossed all our weirdly-shaped ones but kept the Old Navy flat ones. We always added metal nose shape things to those so they fit more securely around the face area. I still have a whole bag of the nose things. I just put them all together. I also kept these silky-fabric ones that we stuffed filters into because I still have a whole package of the filters.

We do have a couple boxes of n95s stored (and I will always, always have some of those on hand forever-until-I-die). And a couple boxes of disposables.

We aren't using any of them now.

Oh, and I also sent a box of kn95s with all 3 kids for the school year. They're also not masking right now, but I will also never again have that feeling of my kid(s) being SO FAR AWAY (at college) and not having hand sanitizer, thermometers, a pulse ox, or face masks.

Hard to believe when all this started, I only had one dd in college, finishing her senior year. Now, I have three kids in college!! Man, does time fly by or what?

[Shoeless]

DS is still using his cloth masks when we go out. I switched to disposable paper ones because it's so flippin' hot here! 

I kind of want to burn the cloth masks. 

[KungFuPanda]

11 hours ago, EKS said:

Cloth masks are useless, literally, so if I had any I'd throw them in the garbage.  

For everything or just Covid? I kinda hope we continue this culture of masking when sick. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid Covid, but I also haven’t been sick at all for years. It’s been nice. I do live in a highly mask-compliant area. 

[EKS]

3 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

For everything or just Covid? I kinda hope we continue this culture of masking when sick. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid Covid, but I also haven’t been sick at all for years. It’s been nice. I do live in a highly mask-compliant area.

They may be ok for some stuff, but why bother trying to figure out what?

I agree with keeping up the culture of masking, though instead of relying of other people to mask when they're sick, I'd just mask myself.

Edited September 4, 2022 by EKS

[J-rap]

I've gotten rid of my earliest ones that seem kind of useless now.  Some of the maybe better ones? (more layers) are in a junk drawer.  I still have Enro masks which are cloth and are supposedly very effective (and are super comfortable), but I got Covid while wearing them while helping my dad who had Covid, so now I'm not sure about those either.

[KSera]

7 minutes ago, J-rap said:

.  I still have Enro masks which are cloth and are supposedly very effective (and are super comfortable), but I got Covid while wearing them while helping my dad who had Covid, so now I'm not sure about those either.

Enro (and Happy Mask) managed to market themselves as far better than they are. In testing as worn, Enro was around 70% effective. Their website tests were performed only on the filter media itself (which doesn’t cover edge to edge inside the mask, so a lot of the air you breathe through it is coming through unfiltered). So, that might at least offer an explanation for how you caught Covid with one on. 

[J-rap]

8 minutes ago, KSera said:

Enro (and Happy Mask) managed to market themselves as far better than they are. In testing as worn, Enro was around 70% effective. Their website tests were performed only on the filter media itself (which doesn’t cover edge to edge inside the mask, so a lot of the air you breathe through it is coming through unfiltered). So, that might at least offer an explanation for how you caught Covid with one on. 

That makes sense, but a question I've always had about the surgical masks is that they never seem to hug my face, even if I add extra knots to the ear loops.  So they seem to have gaps in them as opposed to some of the others (like Enro), which fit me very snugly.

[KungFuPanda]

2 minutes ago, J-rap said:

That makes sense, but a question I've always had about the surgical masks is that they never seem to hug my face, even if I add extra knots to the ear loops.  So they seem to have gaps in them as opposed to some of the others (like Enro), which fit me very snugly.

I had to pinch the bottom and put a staple in the surgical masks to get them snug enough to collapse when I breathed. In hindsight, I probably wear a child-sized mask. 

[KSera]

3 minutes ago, J-rap said:

That makes sense, but a question I've always had about the surgical masks is that they never seem to hug my face, even if I add extra knots to the ear loops.  So they seem to have gaps in them as opposed to some of the others (like Enro), which fit me very snugly.

Oh, I wouldn’t rely on a surgical mask either. Surgical masks perform similar to an Enro. We do KF94 or N95 masks here and get good fits with our favorites styles of those—really tight fits with 3M Aura N95s, which the vast majority of adults can pass fit testing with. If I had only surgical masks to rely on, I would get a mask brace like Fix the Mask. 

Other than being cheap, I’m not sure why surgical masks are so popular. They don’t work very well and they sit right up against your mouth, which I think would be much less comfortable than a 3d mask shape that sits away from your face. We rotate and reuse kf94 and N95 masks, so we don’t go through them very quickly. 

[J-rap]

32 minutes ago, KSera said:

Oh, I wouldn’t rely on a surgical mask either. Surgical masks perform similar to an Enro. We do KF94 or N95 masks here and get good fits with our favorites styles of those—really tight fits with 3M Aura N95s, which the vast majority of adults can pass fit testing with. If I had only surgical masks to rely on, I would get a mask brace like Fix the Mask. 

Other than being cheap, I’m not sure why surgical masks are so popular. They don’t work very well and they sit right up against your mouth, which I think would be much less comfortable than a 3d mask shape that sits away from your face. We rotate and reuse kf94 and N95 masks, so we don’t go through them very quickly. 

I agree about the surgical masks.  We have lots of medical appointments though and are always asked to switch to their own surgical masks when we enter.   I've noticed that some places are starting to accept our own N95s though!  

[EKS]

1 hour ago, J-rap said:

That makes sense, but a question I've always had about the surgical masks is that they never seem to hug my face, even if I add extra knots to the ear loops.

Use a well fitting N95 if you want to actually avoid getting sick.

[EKS]

26 minutes ago, J-rap said:

We have lots of medical appointments though and are always asked to switch to their own surgical masks when we enter.

I just put their surgical mask on over my N95.

[KSera]

38 minutes ago, J-rap said:

I agree about the surgical masks.  We have lots of medical appointments though and are always asked to switch to their own surgical masks when we enter.   I've noticed that some places are starting to accept our own N95s though!  

That’s maddening. I know people in Canada were having a lot of issues with that, but it has gotten better. I didn’t realize that was still happening anywhere in the US though (you’re US, right?). I agree with EKS about putting the surgical (loosely) over your N95. 

[Scarlett]

On 9/3/2022 at 7:57 AM, Pawz4me said:

We're still using ours. I haven't seen any research that convinces me they're not good enough for our minimal exposure.

And ditto mulching leaves.

Yep still using ours too. 

[J-rap]

1 hour ago, KSera said:

That’s maddening. I know people in Canada were having a lot of issues with that, but it has gotten better. I didn’t realize that was still happening anywhere in the US though (you’re US, right?). I agree with EKS about putting the surgical (loosely) over your N95. 

My guess is that in a busy medical clinic, it's quicker to just have everyone put on one of its own surgical masks rather than take time to examine the ones people are bringing in.  (Yes, I'm in the US.)