The coronavirus pandemic is stirring up a lot of creativity.
With the CDC encouraging people to wear cloth face coverings while out in public in response to the the spread of COVID-19, many are exercising their artistic abilities to augment their safety measures.
A woman in Michigan took the idea of creating a face mask quite literally as she painted an image of her nose and lips on a mask formed from a deconstructed bra.
Kathy Van Faasen shared an image of herself wearing the ingenious, yet creepy, mask and it's definitely a sight to behold.
Decked out with realistic shadowing and a glossy red lip, Faasen’s painted lower face mask lines up perfectly with her natural features to form a disjointed image straight out of Hannibal Lecter’s playbook. Silence, Clarice!
Faasen submitted her fashion statement to WXYZ in Detroit as part of the #MIMaskChallenge efforted by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which asks people to share photos of their homemade masks.
Whether you make your own or buy one, health officials have offered tips on what to look for in the ideal face covering.
“The generic advice that we’ve been giving folks is to take your fabric that you’re intending to make the mask from and hold it up to a bright light or the sun. If you can easily see the light passing through the fabric and illuminating the fibers, it’s probably not the best filtering material,” said Dr. Scott Segal, chairman of anesthesiology at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina.
So while thicker cotton fabric is ideal, whatever you may have at home to use is better than going without any covering at all.
“But I will say that something is better than nothing if you must venture out, so I wouldn’t discourage someone from using an old t-shirt if that’s all they can get their hands on,” Segal added.
As far as keeping your non-medical cloth face covering clean, it’s not necessary to wash them everytime you leave the house.
Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, said that while there are "no hard and fast recommendations," it's generally safe to wear one multiple times without washing it.
Hopefully, Faasen used waterproof paint for her undergarment mask so she can stun the public on her outdoor excursions for weeks on end.
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