Glasses fogging up when wearing a face mask can happen. If you are having trouble with your glasses fogging up when wearing a face mask, here are 3 suggestions from Dan Formosa, a designer with extensive experience in creating medical masks, to stop the problem.

ABSORB THE MOISTURE. One solution is to create an absorbent layer between your nose and your eyes to effectively soak up any moisture before it can fog up your glasses. A folded-up piece of tissue paper could do the trick. This was an idea that circulated around Japan, where people commonly wear masks throughout the year to reduce the spread of illnesses. The problem here is that it can be a little annoying to try to keep the tissue in place, and it may cause you to keep touching your face to readjust it or keep it from falling off. If you really want to keep the tissue in place, Formosa proposes uses medical tape to keep it firmly stuck to your nose, but he admits this might be awkward. “You just don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you’re putting yourself more at risk,” he says.

USE A METAL NOSECLIP. In medical masks, like the N95, there is sometimes a metal nose clip that allows you to create a better seal around your nose to prevent moisture from entering or leaving the mask. If you have a homemade mask, you can try to create a similar mechanism by incorporating a metal piece that can be adjusted to the shape of your nose. Some people have been using pipe cleaners or paperclips. Formosa recommends using the metal fasteners that are typically used to keep papers together in a paper folder. You can incorporate these into some DIY mask designs for a better fit at the top. However, it is important to be very careful here, since these metal pieces will be very close to your eyes and could cause a serious accident if they get dislodged.

CREATE SPACE FOR AIR. Another solution when wearing a face mask is to allow air to escape from the side of the mask or the cheek area, rather than the top. The downside of this approach is that it creates a lot less coverage, which makes the mask less effective at catching droplets from your mouth and preventing them from landing on the ground, or the person you’re interacting with at the grocery store. But if you create a mask that is strategically designed to let air billow out and escape from the sides, it is less likely to come out from the top and interfere with your glasses. In Japan, for instance, the Metropolitan Police Department suggests folding the top quarter of your mask down, so air doesn’t escape close to your lenses.