Aromatic Anxiety Mask

About 40 million adults have an anxiety disorder, and not counting the 11.9% of people who don't seek help or are misdiagnosed. According to the National Institute of Health, 1/3 of teens experience an anxiety disorder per year. Of course, it can be easily treatable, but more than half of people suffering from anxiety usually never get treated. Now that you know some facts, you'll understand this project a bit more.

Many over the counter anxiety-reducing supplements carry ingredients we can't pronounce or they just don't end up working as well as they say they do. And some people just don't like taking pills so they buy oral sprays and roller blends with different formulas that claim to reduce anxiety. After countless of remedies and at-home techniques that you can find on the internet, aromatherapy is the most unique and probably the easiest way to reduce anxiety without having to take any pills.

Thus came the idea to make an anxiety friendly face mask that can help reduce anyone's anxiety while running errands out in public. After a few hours of researching articles and different scents, I came up with a quick list of scents that have been tested and proven to help reduce people's anxiety.

Essential Oils to use:

~Lavender Oil (get a good quality one that's high in esters and low of cineol.)

~Sandalwood (has an outdoorsy smell and can also help with insomnia.)

~Bergamot Oil (has a fruity smell)

~Chamomile Oil (can have a fruity smell and also helps with insomnia.)

~Sweer Marjoram (has a bold spicy smell and is more powerful with lavender, chamomile, and bergamot oils)

~Clary Sage (works best with peppermint, lavender, and rosemary.)

Tools used:

~Scissors

~A ruler

~A basic sewing machine

~Thread and needle

Recycled items:

2 buttons ~mine are from an old shirt

Scraps of fabric ~my scraps are from past sewing projects

If you have already made a mask before then this should be simple, except it won't be quite in the same order as usual. If this is your first time making a mask, I'll go step by step:

First, you will want to pick out your fabrics, it has to be cotton for your mask to actually protect you in public. Since I am using recycled items, I got to different shades of green fabric from a past project.

Once you have your fabric, you will want to cut them out in rectangles. Mine were already rectangles, so I just had to trim them to the right size. My rectangles were 6x9 inches but you can make them bigger or smaller to fit you.

Now that you have your rectangles, mark half an inch from the top and bottom corners. Using this mark, you can make a mark one inch away from the first marks you just made. I marked the half of this inch too so that I could visualize it better.

Once you make your marks, you will want to bring the first mark to the second mark by folding it over. As seen in the picture, you will want to bring line A to line B and make them touch. Once you do this, you can fold it back one more time and use a clip, or pin to hold it in place. We do this step so that your mask can fit well and not hang loosely on the sides.

It's important to iron the fabric in place so that it won't move around when you sew and it makes it a lot easier to sew. Once you iron each piece, you will have to sew the darts into place like in the picture. You can use any machine to sew a straight stitch(line)across each dart, or you can hand sew them into place.

Now that you have darts on each side, we will make buttonholes on only one piece of fabric. This rectangle is the one that will be seen on the front, so you can decide which to use. If you use a ruler to find the middle of the rectangle, mark a line that's a little bit longer than the buttons that you'll use. This line is going to guide you as you make each buttonhole.

If you are sewing by hand, start by sewing a straight line next to your mark, then sew horizontally across the last bit of the mark before sewing along the other side of your mark line. You can sew around this little rectangle for two more times if you'd like to secure it better. Once you're done, there should be a small pace in between your sewing you will cut open with scissors. This is the opening your buttons will go through.

If you are sewing with a machine, here is a youtube tutorial that you can follow:

How to sew buttonholes (for beginners)

Now that we have are buttonholes, place both sides together with the right sides (the pretty and neat sides) touching. One they are aligned you can place the elastic in between the two fabrics, preferably 1/2 inch away from the top and bottom. The red "x"'s in the picture are where I placed mine.

Once you pin or clip them into place, you are going to sew the pieces together like in the picture above. Leave space in the middle of the sides, right where each dart stops.

If you put your finger inside one of the openings, you can grab and pull the elastic out and turn the mask inside out. Just like earlier, iron around all the sides and iron the darts into place again. The pictures above shows how bad it looks when you don't iron it compared to how smooth and goo it looks when you do.

Optional: You can sew around the mask again if you want the darts to be extra secured.

I left this step last because you will have to sew the buttons in by hand and because it would have been hard to sew both pieces together if you had sewed the buttons in before.

You can easily find where to sew your button by using your buttonhole to find where you will sew your buttons. Use a pen to mark a line through the button opening and onto the inside of the backside. You can use this marking to figure out where to place and sew your buttons.

Now that you have your mask, you can use any aromatic oil mentioned above to spray or drizzle onto a small piece of cloth, a scrap of fabric, or even a napkin that can fit through the sides of your mask. You can even mix them to come up with your own formula or use premade blends or sprays that you'd like to use.

Now you have your own Aromatic Anxiety Mask to use whenever you feel anxious in public.