Wearing glasses and a mask

If you have already experienced it yourself you will know that wearing glasses and a mask can be very frustrating.

The mask makes your glasses fog up faster.

The spectacle wearers among us have certainly already encountered misty glasses: in winter or when cooking, for example. This is very annoying and it takes a while to get used to wearing a mask!

If fair to say that masks are becoming more and more "normal" in our daily life. This is an important element in countering the spread of the coronavirus.

If you regularly use public transport, wearing a mask is now compulsory in many countries.

You should also wear a mask in places where it is difficult to maintain the recommended "social distance" .

But how do you avoid walking around with fogged glasses all the time?

We provide you with some useful tips below!

There are a few "hacks" that have been posted online over the last few months so I'll go through them one by one

The most popular hack is to apply soap to the lenses and let them air dry.

This is the method I use myself in clinic and find it very useful.

The reason it works is because the soap acts as a surfactant which leaves behind a thin film and prevents the lens from fogging up.

Avoid rubbing the bar of soap too much at the risk of scratching the glasses. Above all, choose a very neutral soap. If the soap is "aggressive", it can damage your treatments and even sting your eyes.

Another good method is to double loop the earpiece of a surgical mask which has the effect of tightening the mask on your face and preventing, to a certain extent, the upwards flow of air and thus reduces the amount of fogging, although does not eliminating it completely.

Taping the top of the mask to the skin under the eyes has a similar effect and is actually more effective in preventing the upward air flow but is more

uncomfortable.

A common method is to loosed the mask which allows air flow to pass through the sides of the mask rather than up through the top but I certainly

do not recommend this method as the mask should be as tight as possible to prevent microbes and viral particles getting through or escaping

in the first instance.

Some people use tissue paper at the top of the mask to try to prevent that upward flow of air that causes fogging.

This has only limited effectiveness but again I wouldn't recommend it as the added complication of inserting and removing the tissue add another

element of risk involving cross contamination of the tissue.

In conclusion I would recommend the soap and air drying method as the best and the one I find most effective.

You can get more information here from the American Acedemy of Ophthalmology.