Adding A Nylon Stocking Layer Could Boost Protection From Cloth Masks, Study Finds

NPR ^ | April 22, 20201:34 PM ET | Maria Godoy at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C.

[conservative98]

During World War II, nylon stockings disappeared from store shelves as the valuable synthetic material was diverted to make critical wartime supplies such as parachutes, flak jackets and aircraft fuel tanks. Now, new research suggests that nylon stockings could once again play a critical role in a national battle — this time by making homemade cloth masks significantly more protective.

Researchers at Northeastern University have found that adding an outer layer made from nylon stockings to a homemade face covering can boost its ability to filter out small particles in the air by creating a tighter seal between the mask and the wearer's face. In some cases, that extra nylon layer helped homemade cloth masks match or exceed the filtering capability of medical-grade surgical masks.

"It really improved the performance of all of the masks, and it brought several of them up and over the baseline mask we were using, which was a 3M surgical-type mask," says Loretta Fernandez, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University and one of the scientists who conducted the research.

[conservative98]

[Scrambler Bob]

So how do you take it off from around your head without touching and spreading all the germs it stopped?

[reintarnation]

"Son, you have a panty on your head."

[11th_VA]

Great - now everyone will look like something from an ‘Outer Limits’ TV episode ... just sayin ...

[TomServo]

Who knew bank robbers had the right idea?

[Parmy]

That's right. I have seen people pick up their mask from the center console in their car seat. Put it on their faces with unsanitary hands. Go into the store and touch the cart and other surfaces. Pay their bill and go to their car and take off their dirty mask with their dirty hands.

Then they probably go to another store. Pick up their dirty mask with their dirty hands and put it on their faces and go into the store and repeat the process

[CodeToad]

Well, that ends THAT idea. *yuck*

[RummyChick]

what about that valve..arent germs going through that too

instead of a hose you could use a gaitor but that is also a problem when you lift it over your head

[Tucker39]

JMHO, but if you make the mask material so thick and impervious that air won’t flow relatively easily through it, the aspirations of the wearer will merely move the air AROUND the mask, through any available opening at the nose, etc., and there will be no filtering taking place at all. And then, as Archie Bunker would say, “What’s the pernt?”

[smvoice]

I KNEW it would get posted! LOLOL!!!

[petitfour]

Stalker

[RckyRaCoCo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=049R_wOazQI

[Dr. Sivana]

Well, women don’t seem to wear stockings for anything any more, so they may as well be used for SOMEthing.

[brianr10]

Right. If you have ever been fit tested for a respirator, they have you move your mouth in a exaggerated way, jump up and down, talk, nod vigorously to check for leaks. Also, wearing one for a long time is very tiring.

[MayflowerMadam]

True. I retired in 2008, and have a drawer full of unopened boxes of panty hose. Hard to part with them; they made my legs look so good! Guess I should move on, though.

[OttawaFreeper]

Something along these lines?

[pepsi_junkie]

Just make sure you get the right kind.

[MayflowerMadam]

People are making masks out of bra cups. Add panty hose on top of that and ... lingerie is back in style again.

[buridan]

Edmund Waller had a poem on that:

“That which her slender waist confin’d,
Shall now my joyful temples bind”