Unusual Uses of Face Masks for Unforeseen Situations

I have a lot of face masks at home. I guess like a lot of people. They are still useful, but no longer necessary (for most people) on a daily basis. I still carry a couple of them in my backpack: one to use in the way it's intended, over my mouth and nose, in places where the air conditioning is too high (I get a cold and become hopelessly hoarse with air conditioning), and the other because during the pandemic I discovered that the masks had other unforeseen uses. As they weigh nothing, and take up no space, I carry another one with me to cover unforeseen events.

Face masks

During the pandemic, I got one of those cuts on my finger that are not serious, but they don't stop bleeding easily. Like the ones you get with a piece of paper. I was taking a walk in the countryside, I didn't have any band-aids and the cut kept opening up, and it was bleeding scandalously. I had a mask (clean and stored in a zip bag), which worked perfectly as an emergency bandage until I could heal the cut properly.

(Obviously, it's not a good idea to do this with a used mask ;))

Naps are one of the best things in life. But they happen during the day, and during the day there is light. Some people find it hard to sleep in the light. If this is your case, and life has given you the chance to take an unplanned nap, but you don't have a sleep mask... The face mask is a good substitute.

I have long hair and no bangs. I like it, but it's sometimes impractical, especially because, even when I wear it up, I have untamed hair that ends up falling over my eyes. 

As I'm shy, having my hair over my eyes is sometimes just what I need for survival ;). But not always. It's not a good situation, for example, for meticulous manual tasks, for repairing something, for reading. If I've lost the hair elastic I usually wear, the mask is very useful. Unflattering, but useful.

Nothing lasts forever, and the side rubbers of face masks are no exception. But you can reuse them:

As hair ties, and continue the fight against hair falling on your face

Or to stop eating softened corn toast, as the little hooks that close them don't last forever either, and tend to get mysteriously lost like socks in the washing machine. And softened corn toast are the opposite of naps: one of de saddest things in life.

Or to any of the hundreds of daily uses a rubber band can have.

It's not the end of the world to find yourself in a bathroom without toilet paper and realise it too late, but it spoils your day. In many bathrooms, the sink is outside, on the other side of the door, which also leaves you without the possibility of using water.

The mask can help you here too (remember to rip off the rubber bands, which may come in handy later in the day). But remember, never, ever flush it down the toilet! Use a waste bin. And, if the unforeseen incident happened to you in the outside, never, ever throw it on the ground. Keep it in your pocket until you find a bin: no one has ever died from it. And there is a special place in hell reserved for people who throw toilet paper in the countryside.