Toy Snorkeling Masks

[lonestar]

When I have a lot of relatives and friends over and I buy them all snorkeling masks and rent boogie-boarding fins at a surf shop and take them freediving in the Malibu kelp forests. I use the same anti-fog chemical on the toy masks that I use for my snorkeling mask however they seem to fog up anyway. Anyone know of a way to keep toy snorkeling masks from fogging up?

 

[Erik]

First, make sure the masks have been scrubbed with toothpaste then with dish soap. The lower quality stuff usually has a lot of residue from the manufacturing process on the glass. The other thing that a lot of people dont realise (new scuba trainees for example) is that not having good airway control will cause moist air from the lungs to move in and out of the mask through the nose and thereby fog the mask. In that case, there's not much that can be done other than explaining how to breath properly through a snorkel. And spit works as well as anti-fog too.
Your friends and relatives are lucky to have such a generous guy around
Cheers,
Erik Y.

 

[SpearSlinger1]

For safeties sake I hope these masks have tempered glass lenses, but be that as it may. What I do with any new mask is scrub the lenses on both sides with white toothpaste on a finger tip, then wash the whole mask with dish soap. You only need to do it once and this will remove any of the residue that Erik spoke of. Before each use I use spit for anti-fog, the wife likes the drops and #1 (11 yr. old son) does either. No matter which anti-fog you like the lenses must be clean and dry before application. Let me stress clean here, especially no sunscreen on the lenses or the anti-fog won't work. After anti-fog treatment the lenses must stay wet, mask on or full of water. Once they start to dry the only thing that will work is to dry the whole thing and start over with the anti-fog.