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Random Fashion Thoughts (Part 3: Style farmer strikes back) - our general discussion thread

emptym

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Hm, that's a good point, I hadn't thought of that.

When this whole thing started, I interviewed JefferyD, who was working to make masks for hospitals. He told me about spunbond, which is the nonwoven material that's used for filters. He also talked about how he thinks it's important to have a moldable nose bridge for a tighter seal, and have fewer seams on the mask, as seams create small holes. (This was when people were still making masks from spunbond).

So since then, I've just been looking for masks that have a nose bridge, spunbond filter, and fewer seams. But hadn't thought about how a pouch-contained filter might be less effective

I have a few packages of basic medical masks, which is what I've been mostly wearing. And I have a blue linen Proper Cloth mask with a pouch-contained filter, which I wear on occasion. Maybe I should stick with the medical masks.

Ralph Lauren is coming out with this mask this season. It has three layers, like other filter-based masks, but also this system that tells you when you need to change filters. Apparently, these little things change color or something.


View attachment 1479204
The medical ones seem to leave even more of a gap around the edges than regular ones. I thought I read or heard from a doctor friend they're mainly to protect the wearer or patient from really large droplets or even fluids like blood splatter, but they don't do much with aerosols.

Btw, this was a great line:
...For a guy who wears suits with a 6" leg opening, you post surprisingly like a guy who wears a 9" leg opening.
 

dieworkwear

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The medical ones seem to leave even more of a gap around the edges than regular ones. I thought I read or heard from a doctor friend they're mainly to protect the wearer or patient from really large droplets or even fluids like blood splatter, but they don't do much with aerosols.

Btw, this was a great line:

I'm far, far from an expert on this area, but my understanding is that most masks are made from one of three materials.

There's metlblown, which is what you'll find in an N95 mask. Then there's spunbond/ spunbel, which is what you'll find on medical masks and most filters. And then there's cloth masks.

Meltblown is the gold standard, but there's a huge shortage of the stuff. The machines that make meltdown are in short supply and they take a lot of time and money to build. But if you can get a good seal on an N95 mask with meltblown, you can filter up to 95% of particles.

Then there's spunbound/ spunbel, as you'd find on a medical mask. This New York Times article says medical masks will filter up to 60 to 80 percent of droplets. So not as good as N95's meltblown, but better than cloth.

Finally, cloth filtration really varies, as it depends on the material. But it's not as good as the others because it's a woven material, which has tiny holes between the threads. Meltblown and spunbond are nonwovens.

So I think it's true that medical masks don't give you as much filtration as an N95, but it's better than not wearing a mask or wearing a woven mask. How a medical mask compares to a pouch-held filter, I don't know.
 

LA Guy

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On the one hand, all of this kind of makes sense in the vague handwavy way, but on the other hand unless you have reason to think you are coming into close proximity with people who have COVID, getting a really good seal and having filters and all that is probably good but also probably overkilll. Its probably better than not, but unless you are a medical resident working intake at a hospital or working customer service in a place that has both COVID spikes and hasn't mandated a lockdown, the marginal difference in wearing any mask kind of properly and wearing a perfectly fit mask made with the correct composites laid in the correct way to create the correct kind of physical filtering isn't worth the price difference of a $1 disposable mask or $3 poly one you get from costco and the $35+ ones you can get from AC and whatnot.

Considering most people take off their mask in public at some point to do some thing (drink water, etc) or the seal breaks if you talk to anyone in any way, its more effort personally than its worth.
There are significant differences between types of masks and how much you limit your own cloud - i.e. how well you protect others. There is some difference in the amount of protection you yourself get. I've only seen one preprint on this, and the protection is apparently ~50% for masks with filters and well fitted (I don't remember how they determined this) which was the highest of the non-medical masks. This as opposed to something like 70% for proper surgical masks, 95% (N95 properly fitted) for N95s, and N99 for N99 industrial masks. So, apparently, not insignificant, but not really anywhere as good as if everyone was masked.

I guess that the point is that you are not going to be able to protect yourself fully, and that your protection increases with greater overall compliance to CDC guidelines. There are somethings that are just asking for trouble, masks or no, like working out in a group cardio class (seriously people), but having a mask *might* protect you from limited, incidental contact.
 

LA Guy

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Yea, but the opposite is just as true. You can very easily get yourself into a "oh well it never seals perfectly so this is all pointless" rabbit hole just as easily as you can the opposite. Just wear a mask. If you like the fancier stuff that's fine too, but the point is that the delta between not wearing a mask and wearing anything is greater than wearing anything and wearing ultra high end seamless hepa filter masks unless you have a huge weighted exposure to it at which point you get an elastomeric respirator
You are mosty right. I just thnk that since we are stuck wearing these things for a while, we may as well wear ones that fit us well, provide some level of protetion, and that we think look good.
 

LA Guy

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Thank you for all the birthday wishes! My main focus is to at least get my mental health and physical health in order. Emotionally too.
Between 29 and 30, I got engaged, so that was a big change for me. I turned 46 just last month, and I really do think that the adage that "The days are long but the years are short" hold true. I have an adopted son in college, my oldest daughter is now a teenager, and everyone is growing up fast.\

I can't speak to mental health, but physical, it's mostly just being more conscious about having a semi reasonable diet, and consistent exercise. I posted a few workouts in the COVID thread. You can do a monster workout with just 10 sqft of space. You can get into decent shape with just that.I will admit that I completely cheat I have both a Concepts2 rower and an asault bjke, and a variety of different dumbbells and kettlebells and a weight bench. But I've done just body weight exercises before as well.

Abs, unfortunately, are built in the kitchen. I did that in my 20s as part of participating in competitive sports that had weight catgories, and was always told that I would just get used to it, but it never took. I looove them carbs. I suppose that if my job were "beach body instructor: or "Regis", then I might change. but as it is, I'm reasonably happy with the compromise.

Happy Birthday.
 

Landau

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There are significant differences between types of masks and how much you limit your own cloud - i.e. how well you protect others. There is some difference in the amount of protection you yourself get. I've only seen one preprint on this, and the protection is apparently ~50% for masks with filters and well fitted (I don't remember how they determined this) which was the highest of the non-medical masks. This as opposed to something like 70% for proper surgical masks, 95% (N95 properly fitted) for N95s, and N99 for N99 industrial masks. So, apparently, not insignificant, but not really anywhere as good as if everyone was masked.

I guess that the point is that you are not going to be able to protect yourself fully, and that your protection increases with greater overall compliance to CDC guidelines. There are somethings that are just asking for trouble, masks or no, like working out in a group cardio class (seriously people), but having a mask *might* protect you from limited, incidental contact.

I mean, with all due respect, citing an unknown preprint of something on Medrxiv isn't definitive, my point still stands with those numbers (i.e. the gap between 0 to 50 and 50 to 75 is huge). Add on top of that compliance friction from trying to educate people to get this kind of mask which costs inexplicably more to most people, the fact that most people dont run into that much virus day to day and the cost/manufacturing/logistics difficulty and it becomes a much more difficult question to answer.

From an epidemiological point of view, Id much rather 90% of people wear **** masks that only work 50% as well than 45% of people wear fancy whatever masks that work 75% as well. I dont hate on people who wear fancy masks, but seeing as the vast majority of people also dont strictly observe mask rules anyway, e.g. most people let masks hang when talking to other people, most people take off masks when sitting down to eat, most people take off their mask to sneeze, etc etc, Id worry more about just educating people about basic "wear your mask and try not to take it off" more than "get seamless whatever facemasks, but dont wear them correctly".

Not saying the rest of y'all aren't wearing it correctly, but its also not like the vast majority of you guys are working in service or medicine where the gap between 50 and 75% makes a huge difference. The most I do is go for a grocery run maybe, maybe go for a walk outside. And if you were or were part of a vulnerable population, again, you'd probably be wearing an elastomeric respirator like most residents/nurses/doctors I know are by now.

My whole point being if you want to look good, fine, but speculating on the effectiveness of mask a vs mask b based on stuff you heard from other people who are also kind of speculating based on common sense is meh. I generally make fun of academic science, but one thing it has taught me is common sense is often misleading. On the other hand, if you wanna claim seamless masks look better or a certain material looks cooler or wears better day to day without fogging up glasses or other QOL things thats fine.

Basically we agree but are having a classic styleforum conversation about "Yea but..."
 

LA Guy

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I mean, with all due respect, citing an unknown preprint of something on Medrxiv isn't definitive, my point still stands with those numbers (i.e. the gap between 0 to 50 and 50 to 75 is huge). Add on top of that compliance friction from trying to educate people to get this kind of mask which costs inexplicably more to most people, the fact that most people dont run into that much virus day to day and the cost/manufacturing/logistics difficulty and it becomes a much more difficult question to answer.

From an epidemiological point of view, Id much rather 90% of people wear **** masks that only work 50% as well than 45% of people wear fancy whatever masks that work 75% as well. I dont hate on people who wear fancy masks, but seeing as the vast majority of people also dont strictly observe mask rules anyway, e.g. most people let masks hang when talking to other people, most people take off masks when sitting down to eat, most people take off their mask to sneeze, etc etc, Id worry more about just educating people about basic "wear your mask and try not to take it off" more than "get seamless whatever facemasks, but dont wear them correctly".

Not saying the rest of y'all aren't wearing it correctly, but its also not like the vast majority of you guys are working in service or medicine where the gap between 50 and 75% makes a huge difference. The most I do is go for a grocery run maybe, maybe go for a walk outside. And if you were or were part of a vulnerable population, again, you'd probably be wearing an elastomeric respirator like most residents/nurses/doctors I know are by now.

My whole point being if you want to look good, fine, but speculating on the effectiveness of mask a vs mask b based on stuff you heard from other people who are also kind of speculating based on common sense is meh. I generally make fun of academic science, but one thing it has taught me is common sense is often misleading. On the other hand, if you wanna claim seamless masks look better or a certain material looks cooler or wears better day to day without fogging up glasses or other QOL things thats fine.

Basically we agree but are having a classic styleforum conversation about "Yea but..."
I agree with you. The important thing are masks that cover the nose and mouth and restrict plumes. Reasonably well fitted masks are important for this, and there are some basic guidelines. You can do a simply "blow" test with a tissue around your face to see basically how well you are doing. The is primarily an exercise in community health protocols, rather than in personal health protocols, but a lot of people don't seem to get that.

My only point was that we are going to be wearing these things for the foreseable future, unless our understanding of the disease transmission changes fundamentally, so, being people on Styleforum, we may as well make the best of it. I like the bandana print masks because it makes me look a little like an old wild west bandit. I doubt that that protects me or the next guy very much in and of itself.

fwiw, I'm not speculating, at least not as much as the next guy. My doctorate was in atmospheric sciences (mostly long range transport), and most of the department and my group was focused on aerosols, including research on filtration devices against biochemical warfare agents (including filtation and then destruction of the agent with very strong (UV) light. I **** you not.)

My wife is the lead in a COVID-19 research group, and I've "come out of retirement" so to speak, to help with the project. My wife asked me about the residence times of aerosols (as opposed to large droplets), and I busted out my old grad school texts and did some back of the envelop calculations. That was shortly before masks became recommended. Previous to that, we had thought that the primary source of infection was fomite transmission, and everyone was doing stuff like spraying down their Amazon packages with bleach. Better than the lungs. Come to think of it, that was maybe 6 months ago? Seems like a lifetime.

I'll admit that the research was more exciting in March and April when we thought that the country was going to have a shining moment and come together with a great deal of resolve to solve this problem, but it soon became a disheartening slog.

I hear from the clinical side as well. Two of my brothers are in the medical field - one as a frontline doctor (though he jokes that he makes the residents do the tough work) and the other is an administrator in a reasonably sized LTC facility. Luckily, they are in Canada, and they were both better organized at the beginning, and better prepared now, though one of them just experienced on outbreak in one of their wings.
 

Landau

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I agree with you. The important thing are masks that cover the nose and mouth and restrict plumes. Reasonably well fitted masks are important for this, and there are some basic guidelines. You can do a simply "blow" test with a tissue around your face to see basically how well you are doing. The is primarily an exercise in community health protocols, rather than in personal health protocols, but a lot of people don't seem to get that.

My only point was that we are going to be wearing these things for the foreseable future, unless our understanding of the disease transmission changes fundamentally, so, being people on Styleforum, we may as well make the best of it. I like the bandana print masks because it makes me look a little like an old wild west bandit. I doubt that that protects me or the next guy very much in and of itself.

fwiw, I'm not speculating, at least not as much as the next guy. My doctorate was in atmospheric sciences (mostly long range transport), and most of the department and my group was focused on aerosols, including research on filtration devices against biochemical warfare agents (including filtation and then destruction of the agent with very strong (UV) light. I **** you not.)

My wife is the lead in a COVID-19 research group, and I've "come out of retirement" so to speak, to help with the project. My wife asked me about the residence times of aerosols (as opposed to large droplets), and I busted out my old grad school texts and did some back of the envelop calculations. That was shortly before masks became recommended. Previous to that, we had thought that the primary source of infection was fomite transmission, and everyone was doing stuff like spraying down their Amazon packages with bleach. Better than the lungs. Come to think of it, that was maybe 6 months ago? Seems like a lifetime.

I'll admit that the research was more exciting in March and April when we thought that the country was going to have a shining moment and come together with a great deal of resolve to solve this problem, but it soon became a disheartening slog.

I hear from the clinical side as well. Two of my brothers are in the medical field - one as a frontline doctor (though he jokes that he makes the residents do the tough work) and the other is an administrator in a reasonably sized LTC facility. Luckily, they are in Canada, and they were both better organized at the beginning, and better prepared now, though one of them just experienced on outbreak in one of their wings.

Thats all well and good but that doesn't prove that x is more efficienet than y by the specific numbers you cited based on a preprint you saw. I don't distrust your numbers but it doesn't matter either way.

Masks were always recommended, but it just had crap messaging and a combination of a worldwide shortage where doctors had to reuse n95s and no one knowing the mechanism of spread meant something different than it does today. Fwiw I have plenty of relatives too in medicine, and Ive also worked on modeling this in a project youve definitely heard about and have expertise in this field. But again, we agree so shrug.
 

LA Guy

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Thats all well and good but that doesn't prove that x is more efficienet than y by the specific numbers you cited based on a preprint you saw. I don't distrust your numbers but it doesn't matter either way.

Masks were always recommended, but it just had crap messaging and a combination of a worldwide shortage where doctors had to reuse n95s and no one knowing the mechanism of spread meant something different than it does today. Fwiw I have plenty of relatives too in medicine, and Ive also worked on modeling this in a project youve definitely heard about and have expertise in this field. But again, we agree so shrug.

I don't see any fundamental disagreement, so whatever. I suppose that my only point was that I felt qualified to judge the quality of the preprint, and found it fairly reasonable at the time.

Of course, the entire discussion is moot right now though, with anti-masking having become a political rallying point. News stories from 1918-1920 show that this happened back then as well, so I guess that people just don't learn, or at least, forget quickly.

Incidentally, the group is right now in the process of gathering survey data around attitudes about COVID-19, including masking, in a handful of selected states, so maybe in a couple of months, I can report back on that.

I'd be interested in knowing what project you are working on. Send me a PM if you feel that it's too easily identifiable to talk about publicly. Anyway, I'm going to bed. Talk to you all tomorrow.
 

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Has anyone heard when Japan Post might begin offering EMS again?

I didn't realize it was suspended before ordering something and now my only two options are DHL (?) or Seamail (?). The proxy will hold it in the warehouse for 30 days so curious if anyone has insider info ?
I would be surprised if it became available by the end of the year at this point. I monitor it weekly, but no remote changes for US shipping options. The shop I order from directly has been using DHL or FedEx as an alternative for me.. significantly more expensive than EMS, but its the only option if I want to buy stuff right now.
 

Superb0bo

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Meanwhile here in Sweden: no masks.

I did some social norm violations in Stockholm, as being the only one in the subway with a mask when visiting in August. The Netherlands has been slow as well, now its "strongly recommended" for all indoor public spaces (only mandatory in public transport).
 

FlyingMonkey

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What @Landau says is 100% correct - it's astonishing how bad US has been so bad at getting this, along with everything else about this pandemic. The whole argument about 'sealed' and medical masks is completely missing the point that people in Taiwan and Japan and other cultures already accustomed to mask-wearing to prevent the spread of droplet-born diseases already understand.

In Ontario, we have to wear masks in any indoor setting (other than your own home). People are already used to it, they do it, and objections are very few. We wear fitted masks similar to the ones already show that my wife has made based on patterns that are widely available on the net, designed for non-surgical hospital use. If you've got basic sewing skills and the materials you shouldn't need to buy anything fancy. Anyway we have a selection in a whole lot of interesting printed fabrics. And yes, they are made with a pocket for a further filter.
 

emptym

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I'm far, far from an expert on this area, but my understanding is that most masks are made from one of three materials.

There's metlblown, which is what you'll find in an N95 mask. Then there's spunbond/ spunbel, which is what you'll find on medical masks and most filters. And then there's cloth masks.

Meltblown is the gold standard, but there's a huge shortage of the stuff. The machines that make meltdown are in short supply and they take a lot of time and money to build. But if you can get a good seal on an N95 mask with meltblown, you can filter up to 95% of particles.

Then there's spunbound/ spunbel, as you'd find on a medical mask. This New York Times article says medical masks will filter up to 60 to 80 percent of droplets. So not as good as N95's meltblown, but better than cloth.

Finally, cloth filtration really varies, as it depends on the material. But it's not as good as the others because it's a woven material, which has tiny holes between the threads. Meltblown and spunbond are nonwovens.

So I think it's true that medical masks don't give you as much filtration as an N95, but it's better than not wearing a mask or wearing a woven mask. How a medical mask compares to a pouch-held filter, I don't know.
I think understand the difference regarding materials. My point is just that the fit and resultant seal is another important variable.

And so my question is, how much protection would a mask with poor fit give (to oneself and others), even if it had good material (whether meltblown or spunbond)? More specifically: If N95s give relatively little protection when they don't have a great seal, then how much protection would a cloth mask with a filter insert or a loose medical mask give? My guess is that the air would take the path of least resistance, and thus largely enter and exit where there were gaps or where the filter doesn't extend.

This pic illustrates what I meant regarding gaps or looseness around the edges of a medical mask:
3-ply-medical-masks_5739879c-f05a-426b-916d-aad30a24cc94.png


Compare that fit to the Proper Cloth one that you posted earlier. Would a loose-fitting medical mask be better protection than a well-fitting, 2-3 layer cloth mask, with or without a filter?

The Mayo clinic mentions this looseness as well as medical masks' intended purpose of protecting one from splashes and droplets (and large aerosols):
Also called a medical mask, a surgical mask is a loose-fitting disposable mask that protects the wearer's nose and mouth from contact with droplets, splashes and sprays that may contain germs. A surgical mask also filters out large particles in the air. Surgical masks may protect others by reducing exposure to the saliva and respiratory secretions of the mask wearer.

I'm definitely not saying we shouldn't be wearing masks. I just wonder how much protection each type gives. Personally, I just wear a cloth mask that doesn't have many gaps, mainly to protect others. And once a month I'll wear a N95 to go to Costco where it's crowded and I want to give myself, and potentially others, more protection. But maybe a medical mask or a cloth mask with a filter would be better.

Since we'll be wearing masks for the long term, as Fok mentioned, it'd be great if scientists could conduct some comprehensive studies on this.
 
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