I received some great news just a few minutes ago. I got an update on some of the supplies that we have been waiting to receive and we will hopefully be getting them by Monday. If you have been wanting to order the masks, I hope to have listings going back up possibly this weekend and more by next Tuesday.

As some of you may know, we have been making and providing medical covers such as oxygen tube covers, ostomy pouch covers and face masks to name just a few online since 1999 and on Etsy since 2014. With the current state, mom and I have been super busy trying to coordinate and provide masks to doctors, nurses, medical personnel, police officers, veterinary personnel, grocery workers, delivery drivers and anyone else in need.

I’ve had my current mask for over 8 months now and have never had a problem with the wire nose piece.  However, I wanted to take a moment and give a couple of suggestions if yours breaks.

We recommend that you gently hand wash your mask and then hang it to air dry.  It’s also highly recommended that you do not “mess” with the nose piece once you have it “fitted” to your nose.  The less you adjust it the longer it will last.

There are a couple of suggestions for “fixing” a snapped wire. You could take a sharp pair of household scissors and make a single snip on the backside of the mask next to the seam. Once a small snip has been made you can try to gently tug the metal pieces out. You might need to maneuver the broken piece a bit to get it to come out.  If you gently tug and nothing happens, the wire doesn’t move, it might be within the stitching of the mask which can happen. The other thing that you could try if you don’t want to snip a hole into the mask, you could take a twist tie and attach it to the outside of the mask so that it will hold it’s position. I don’t recommend this as much though as the snapped wire could still poke and the twist tie will eventually break and need replaced.

The sad thing is, and why nurses and doctors around the country are having trouble with supplies, masks are not meant to be worn more than once or adjusted multiple times. We do. I have a mask that I have worn every time I’ve left the house for the last 8 months and my wire has held up. My new mask, I wore it twice and the wire snapped. Even though we use the heavy-duty wire, snaps unfortunately happen. =(  The only way to know if a wire will hold up is if we were to twist each one multiple times which then weakens the wire causing a snap sooner.