How Our Face Masks Protect Against UV Light
While face masks are an essential tool to help curb the spread of illness in your community, they also have many other uses you may not have previously considered. With summer right around the corner, you’re probably gearing up to spend more time outside soaking up the season’s gloriously warm sunshine, which means you should have the proper tools to help protect your skin from the harmful effects of sun damage. Surprisingly, the right kind of face mask can be a wonderful addition to your sun protection arsenal.
If you haven’t already considered upping your efforts to protect yourself from the sun this summer and always — you should. Sun exposure brings damage to your skin that accumulates over time, causing long-term effects like discoloration, blemishes, moles, rosacea, and premature aging (yes, that means wrinkles!). To keep your skin looking its smoothest, healthiest, and youngest, it’s best to always wear protection, whether it’s a sunscreen, a hat, or even a proper face mask. In fact, dermatologists actually recommend applying a sunscreen of at least SPF15 every time you go outside, even if it’s just for a few minutes. For an extended time outside, they recommend an SPF30. Why? Because that’s how serious sun damage can be.
Where do cloth face masks come in? If your skin is sensitive to sunscreen, you may try wearing a sun protection face mask that blocks UV rays instead. Our Enro reusable masks are made with multiple layers of tightly-woven materials that help to soak up UV rays, preventing them from reaching and damaging your skin. So while you may not need to wear a mask to protect you and those around you from viruses and bacteria while enjoying a day of fun in the sun, they can certainly still provide protection from the ever-present danger of harmful UV rays.
Our Protective Cloth Face Masks
Now that you know cloth face masks can be an excellent source of UV light protection, how do you choose the right one? It’s important to note that not all masks offer proper protection from the sun. Your average cotton face mask actually only provides protection equivalent to an SPF7 sunblock, which makes it crucial to choose a mask that is built to block harmful UV rays, like our best-selling Enro masks.
When looking for UV protection face masks, you need to take into account its UPF rating. While SPF measures how much UV radiation is required to cause damage to protected skin, UPF — ultraviolet protection factor — measures how much UV radiation a fabric allows to reach your skin. For example, a UPF50 fabric will block at least 98% of UV rays, meaning only 2%, or 1⁄50 of them, will actually reach your skin. This offers excellent protection that you can’t wash off or sweat off during your favorite outdoor activities.
Because we sought to build our Enro reusable masks with the best of everything, we made sure to craft them with materials tested as having a UPF50 rating, otherwise classified as “excellent” UV protection according to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards. In tests, our masks actually blocked over 99% of UV-A and UV-B rays — and that was after 100 washes.
We made sure our masks excel beyond their essential ability to help slow the spread of illness, so you can continue to use them to bring ease to other areas of your life, including outdoor sports and activities where you might need a little extra sun protection to keep your skin as healthy as it can be. No matter what your plans are for the summer, you can feel good knowing that Enro has you covered in more ways than one.
Block Harmful UV Rays With Enro
As you begin to make all of your fun plans for the summer from tropical escapes and beach trips to scenic hikes and sporting events, make sure that you have everything you need to protect your skin from the sun’s damaging rays. In addition to sunscreen, our Enro cloth face masks with a UPF50 rating offer excellent protection from the sun that’s both comfortable and won’t need to be reapplied. In a range of colors, prints, and sizes, we have a sun protection mask that will fit your face, outfit and personality perfectly. We even offer kid-friendly sizes, so you can ensure your entire family is protected from harmful UV rays, no matter where you go.Go ahead and stock up — your future self will thank you for keeping their skin young and healthy.
