Your dive mask is the most important bit of kit, if your mask doesn’t fit or is fogging up all the time it doesn’t matter how fancy your fins, speargun or wetsuit is because it will completely ruin your diving experience.
Find the right fit.
Whether its Spearfishing, Freediving, Scuba Diving or just Snorkeling, finding the perfect mask is very important. At Spearfishing UK we sell the UK’s largest range of masks for freediving and spearfishing with over 60 different models. Finding the right mask is the first step in making sure your mask doesn’t fog up, if you can get to a local store and try masks on or order a few options online and get them delivered this will help your chances of getting the right fit.
If your unlucky like me you have to try 40 different masks to find the right fit, for most people its a lot easier. If you need help finding the right mask simply give us a call. Here is a few of our top recommendations:
Salvimar Noah, Hathor and Morpheus. Rob Allen Cobia & Moana. Picasso Atomic & Infima. Cressi Atom. Epsealon Minisub.
How do you check the fit? Place the mask on your face without the mask strap, you simply want to test the seal. Breathe in through your nose and hold your breath, the mask should stick to your face and hold the suction. If air keeps coming in and the mask just pops off your face when you hold your breath then this wont work. You want to get as close as possible to having the mask vacuum to your face and stay there.
If the mask fits well and doesn’t leak, this is the first step to making sure the mask doesn’t fog up.
Why does your mask fog?
The main issue that causes fogging is essentially a flaw in the design of most masks, no matter how much anti fog marketing the companies might add to the mask, most will always fog when brand new.
The reason for this is when the the mask is made, a layer of silicone gets coated onto the glass and this causes the condensation/perspiration from your face to fog the glass, all modern masks are made with a silicone seal so you cant escape this.
How to fix this
The recommended way to fix this is to rub a small amount of basic toothpaste onto the inside of the glass, the slight abrasive nature of this removes the silicone layer without damaging the glass, once you have done this, let it dry and rinse out with some warm water. Using a lighter also works and you can see the silicone layer fade away, you have to be careful of not getting the flame too close to the glass.
Once you have done this when initially purchasing the mask all you need to do before you enter the water is spit on the inside of the lens and rub this around, then dunk into the sea and this causes a hydrophobic layer on the glass that stops fogging.
This usually is enough from one application to remove the silicone, if you still have issues you may have to do it a few times, you can also use anti fog sprays to do the same job. We sell a few of these from Cressi and Salvimar.
New tech
Some new masks are now made with special glass that stops fogging out of the box without needing anything extra, the new Salvimar masks all have hydrophobic glass which works very effectively. We have tested this ourselves and have been very impressed, simply dunk the mask in the sea before placing it on your face and it doesnt fog. The Salvimar range of masks where already our most popular sellers and now with the Anti Fog versions they are even more popular.
Some masks like the Cressi Naxos and Quantum have chambers inside the mask to seal air around your nose and eyes to stop fogging, this does help but you still need to sort the lenses when its new.
You can find these masks here.
