Harbor Freight 'Blue Shop towels' the MOST effective material for DIY COVID-19 face masks

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Using blue shop towels in homemade face masks can filter particles 2x to 3x better than cotton, 3 clothing designers discover after testing dozens of fabrics

Summary​

• Using blue shop towels in homemade face masks can filter particles 2x to 3x better than cotton, 3 clothing designers discover after testing dozens of fabrics

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• Lindsay Medoff, the CEO of Suay Sew Shop, a 30-employee boutique Los Angeles clothing manufacturer, wants the armies of people sewing homemade surgical masks to add a specific blue shop towel inside them.​
• Medoff and two friends were appalled by the dozens of mask patterns calling for cotton, a highly breathable, permeable fabric, and became obsessed with finding a fabric better suited for the job. They built a lab that could test particle filtration down to 0.3 microns and tested every fabric they could find, from coffee filters to industrial materials.​
• They discovered that by adding two blue shop towels and using a design that produces a tighter-fitting mask, they could make a mask that could block up to 95% of the particles they could test, while the cotton masks blocked 20% to 60% of the particles.​
• These are not meant to replace the N95 masks worn by healthcare workers — they're designed to be an alternative to the cotton masks that many people are making and wearing for quick trips to the grocery store.​
• The women are sewing 200,000 masks and giving them — and a design — away, as well as raising money to pay their workers their full wages.​
• They're also raising money to get their mask tested with the actual COVID-19 pathogen to see whether their design could be validated as a safer solution during the mask shortage.​
• "This is ordinary people taking their power back," Medoff said.

https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/blue-shop-towels-the-most-effective-material-for-diy-face-masks.3384525/