How to Clean your Face Mask while Traveling
Traveling with face masks will probably become the norm in the coming months, if not years. Unless you are traveling with disposable masks, and lots of them, you’ll probably want to wash your masks along the way. Not only is this a more cost effective way over the disposable masks, but it’s also the more eco-friendly way.
Before we jump in, here’s our disclaimer: Fermin and I are NOT health professionals, the following blog post is the research we’ve done to prepare to travel again to stay as healthy as possible. All sources are cited so you can check them out and dig further if you’d like. Alrighty, now let’s get to it.
Can you wash your face mask?
Maaaaybe, it all depends on what kind of mask you have.
As you can see, only fabric masks are washable at this moment. However, in a bind you can wash a disposable mask, just be aware that the effectiveness of the mask is reduced. Keep reading to the ‘effectiveness and other interesting stuff’ section below.
For your washable mask, these are the things you will need
Thankfully you won’t need much more than what you normally travel with; liquid soap as it dissolves more easily and a tiny dropper (about 1oz / 30ml) with bleach.
How often should you clean your face mask
Incredibly we haven’t found any steadfast rules as to how ‘often’ you should be cleaning your mask. In hospitals, nurses and other health professionals are supposed to change it for every patient, to avoid spreading the virus. As we understand it, the general public uses a mask to protect ourselves from other people’s water droplets and them from our own water droplets. Therefore we think once a day might be ‘often’ enough. (However, if we find new information we’ll be sure to update this blog post)
How to clean your face mask with water
Most of our research indicates that in order to sanitize the mask you’ll need to let it soak at least 5 minutes. Often in our travels the sink stopper is either missing or gone so we don’t think the sink will be a viable option always. As an alternative, we suggest using the ice bucket normally provided in rooms.
Here’s what you have to do:
Fill the bucket with hot water (as hot as you can get but it doesn’t have to be boiling).
Add a little liquid soap, depending on how big your bucket is, and a few drops of bleach.
Let the masks sit in the water at least 5 minutes, give ‘em a good scrub, rinse and let dry overnight.
I heard the virus will die eventually, do I still need to wash my mask?
That’s correct, the virus will eventually die if the mask you are wearing is left to dry. However that does not clean the grime that’s accumulated during the day, especially when your mask gets damp from breathing on it. How often you wash your mask is a personal choice, we think everyday, especially when traveling, is a good start.
Effectiveness and other interesting stuff
In researching how to wash our masks we bumped into other, tangential, interesting information about masks - if you are curious here are some pretty cool articles.
How long does the COVID-19 virus live in a different surfaces? Here’s a Healthline article and a Houston Methodist medical center article about clothes.
Can you wash your disposable mask and does it loose effectiveness? Smart air talks about that here. Spoiler alert, the answer is YES, but checkout their post anyway b/c it’s super interesting.
Curious to know how effective the material for your mask is? check out this blog post by Smart Air about the best materials for masks. You can geek out on all kinds of tests to find out how many particles go through different types of fabrics.
Want to know if you can disinfect your masks by using the microwave? Another blog post tackled by Smart Air with the science behind it - click here. Although not recommended it seems it’s possible if you are in a bind.
That’s all we’ve got! We hope this post was interesting. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.
