You’ve bought a new mask but before you can go diving with it, you’ll need to prepare it. When masks are made, they leave a thin chemical film on the lens to protect it during the manufacturing process. It’s this chemical film that makes a mask more prone to fogging.
There are a couple of ways to prepare your mask:
1. The Lighter/Burn it method
Essentially, you’re burning off the chemical layer inside the mask.
This is the most risky of all the methods but it is also the fastest way to prepare a mask. It works best on plain tempered glass lenses. I haven’t tried it on the UV coated lenses, and have opted for more traditional methods.
I’ve used this method on the way out to dive sites or between dives for some of my guests, and it works a treat. All you need is a lighter. I like to run the lighter over a spot until you can see it burn off the chemical layer, you’ll be able to see it burn back. While you’re doing this be careful of the following things:
- Don’t put the lighter on for too long, it’ll heat up the glass layer quickly, meaning it:
- Might burn you if you touch it
- May delaminate the glass
- Can melt the silicon skirt
- Don’t drop it in a bucket of ice cold water afterwards
- Be careful around the silicon edges, don’t spend too much time burning near it
- Yes, it will leave a carbon layer on the inside of the lens. This is easy enough to remove
That’s it! I also like to just do a quick once over with toothpaste to get ride of the carbon.
2. The scrub/polish method
You can use all sorts of things to do this. Save yourself some money and don’t bother buying the stuff from the dive shop, it does the same thing as toothpaste or jif or any other abrasive surface cleaner.
Toothpaste – use plain white toothpaste, not the gel types, just something cheap will do the trick
Jif
Dishwashing detergent bars – These dishwashing detergent bars are very common in asia, and replace normal dishwashing liquid. They have a slightly gritty feel to it
How to do it
Take a small dab of toothpaste in each lens, with a little bit of water (a few drops is generally enough, you want it paste-like but not too diliuted). Scrub each lens in a circular motion, covering the entire lens, and do that for a few minutes (3-5mins). Give the lens a rinse, and repeat 2 more times.
Once you’re done, give it a good rinse, and try to get all the paste out of the sides of the lens, where it meets the skirt.
I often hear people mention that they left their lens with toothpaste on it overnight. This does nothing to remove the chemical layer. Toothpaste is an abrasive so requires scrubbing, it isn’t acidic, so won’t eat away the layer.
Don’t forget the skirts
I’d also suggest giving the silicon skirts a quick scrub with toothpaste as well. During manufacturing, a layer of chemicals gets onto the skirt. Giving it a quick scrub with toothpaste will remove this layer and improve the seal that you get, reducing leaking.