After the story about a piece of pantyhose people ask what else can be adapted for making a homemade mask.
Thick cotton is usually used. A jersey t-shirt in one layer is not very suitable. In the spring I had an article about standard American mask to protect against small droplets or aerosols.
Jersey
Such a mask could be made from a T-shirt, but heavy, tight knitwear was needed. And this mask had as many as nine layers of a T-shirt. For better filtration, these layers had to be shifted alternately along and across.
The fact is that knitwear stretches better in one direction than in the other. Therefore, on the complex shape of a human face, one layer of a knitted T-shirt will stretch unevenly, pushing the fibers of the fabric apart. This deteriorates the filtering ability.
Well, if you alternate layers, laying out every second one across, then the filtration improves.
See the light
In general, the quality of the fabric is determined by eye. Literally. You have to look through the fabric at the sun or a lamp. If you can see the rays of the sun or lamps, then such a fabric will filter poorly.
If you remember, I had such an article about clothes. with UV protection. Cotton is used there, but the weaving is such that it does not stretch at the folds, and the sun does not break through such fabric.
The clothes are good for the skin, but personally I don't really like these pants, because they don't stretch at all.
In fact, even a single layer jersey tee also provides some protection.
Heavy cotton bed linen gives a filtration rate of about 10%. If you take four such layers, then the filtration will already be 20%.
Usually choose as many layers in the mask as you can breathe. I was quite able to physically work in that American mask of 9 layers of T-shirt. True, I was too lazy to boil this T-shirt. The cotton is allowed to boil for 10 minutes so that complete shrinkage occurs. Have you tried this?
