How to keep your glasses fog-free while wearing a face mask

• Glasses wearers are experiencing foggy lenses while wearing masks during the coronavirus pandemic.
• In order to prevent fog and help mask-wearers see properly, doctors suggested a soapy water hack.
• You can also seal your mask around your face with folded tissue or buy a product that prevents lens fog.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Being unable to see through foggy spectacles has become a major annoyance for glasses wearers who have to venture outside for groceries and other errands during the pandemic.

Across the US, government officials require residents wear face coverings while out in public places where social distancing is not possible, or more complicated. If they don't, they could face a fine.

There are products and tricks that involve common household items that could help you keep your glasses fog-free while wearing a face mask.

Washing your glasses with soapy water helps to deflect condensation, doctors say

In 2011, two doctors from The Royal College of Surgeons of England shared a simple hack for deflecting the tiny particles that block your vision.

If you wash your glasses with soapy water, shake off the excess, and let them air dry or gently wipe with a tissue right before putting your face mask on, a fine mist won't cover your frames, the doctors said.

They said that soapy water, unlike soap-free water, leaves behind a thin film once dry, and that film helps any condensation "to spread out evenly into a transparent layer." That way, a misting effect doesn't happen.

Unfortunately, this hack is made problematic by recent developments in the eyewear industry: many people now have glasses which are resistant to other substances, which means they may not take on the protection soap offers.

Construction workers use fog spray

There are products for purchase that prevent foggy glasses (which, again, may not work for people with more advanced lenses).

There are certain kinds of anti-fog sprays that work on goggles and glasses, according to trade magazine Environmental Design and Construction, which offers advice for construction workers who wear masks and goggles.

The magazine suggested Jaws Quick Spit Antifog Spray, Z Clear Lens Cleaner, and Cressi Anti-Fog Spray, among others.

Get a mask with a metal wire at the top, or sew a pipe-cleaner into your homemade mask

Most masks, whether medical, store-bought, or homemade, don't naturally seal around the face. This leads to condensation from your breath to escape of fog up your eyewear.

Some masks come with a flexible metal wire in the inner top portion, which can be bent to form around your face contours and stop air from escaping the mask. However, these sometimes don't live up to their promise, especially on one-size-fits-all masks like KN95s and surgical masks.

If you don't have medical tape, you could fashion a pipe-cleaner or paper clip into a makeshift nose clip to secure your tissue or hold a bandana or other cloth mask flush against your face, Dan Formosa, a designer with extensive experience in manufacturing medical masks, suggests.

Try taping a folded-up tissue to the bridge of your nose, or tape your mask to your face

Another DIY technique Formosa recommends is folding a tissue and securing it with medical tape to the bridge of your nose underneath your mask, as a kind of barrier to block the moisture that blows up towards your glasses.

"It's very hard to create a flat seal around the nose area, in particular, because the physiology of people's noses varies so widely," Formosa told Fast Company, so the tissue can fill in any gaps.

He did warn, however, that the tape should be well secured before you leave home so it doesn't slip around and defeat its purpose.