Homemade COVID masks: Modify yours to snuggle your nose

Note: This blog shows you how to modify existing masks using a common household item.

I’ve purchased several homemade COVID masks for my family, which were created by two lovely women, Andrea and Eve. I’ve also made a few of them myself during this lockdown. They all work but have an irritating side effect. My glasses get steamed up with my every exhale. Can you relate? I’m sure you can. While this is a much lesser annoyance than say contracting the virus, it is an annoyance. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with a solution. Wiping my lenses with Rain-x windshield washer fluid was one method I tried. While it did nothing to stop my exhales from steaming up my glasses, I suppose if someone sneezed directly into my face, that moisture would bead up and drip off of them. So there’s that. I actually thought of using one of those skinny metal bristles that city street sweeper machines leave in their trail. That may work. However, the only time I’ve seen a street sweeper this year was on TV. Not gonna help much.

While making my morning java a couple days later, the Universe dropped the answer on my kitchen counter.  Use the metal closures from bags of coffee! Thank you, Universe! 

To test my theory, I modified one of the masks I’d purchased from the lovely women. Not one of mine, of course. Hehe.

I’m just going to go ahead and apologize to every supermarket, coffee chain, grocery store, as well as to all the online stores, right here and now. If you start noticing that a number of your coffee bags are missing their metal closure strips, I am genuinely sorry. While it was my idea, dropped on my counter by the Universe, to share my “how-to” with the world, this idea is based on using products that people would already have in their home — like I did. That is what I expect of you, my readers, too. Use what you currently have available in your home, please. 

Disclaimer: I have shared my idea. What you do with this information is 100% up to you. But please use it wisely. I mean, we all saw what happened with the toilet paper!! Oh, and let’s not forget the ice cream licking trend that caused mass production of sealed ice cream containers. I am not responsible for anyone, or any group of people, swiping all the metal coffee bag closures from all the grocers’ shelves. 

Second disclaimer: If anyone else has come up with this idea, I did not steal it. I haven’t even Googled it or searched YouTube for ways to modify these masks for nose snuggling. I was determined to come up with a solution on my own. However, when the Universe provides an answer, it’s often heard by more than one person. Don’t believe me? Research the most famous inventions, and you will see that often there are two people from differing parts of the world who each claim to have had the idea first. 

Do you have a friend or friends who follow the example of their Depression-era parents? I’ll bet you do, and they have likely saved each metal coffee bag closure strip that entered their house. They are all in a ziplock bag or being held together by a rubber band, just lying there in a drawer, waiting patiently. I know it! They save all of those lil strips because someone “may need this one day.” That someone is you! 

In conclusion, you’re probably wondering how you will keep your coffee bag closed without that little metal strip, aren’t you? Easily!