Today we're looking at something that was
sent to me it's called the Custom Molding Nose Strips for Masks the owner Dave sent them to
me, we'll be talking to him later in this video and I thought I would just start by trying
them and see how they work for me before we get on our video call so that if I
have any questions he can answer them. Welcome back my name is Tammy and this
is NurseMinder and on this channel we do everything nursing so if you're new here consider
subscribing below so that you get the next video when it's released. Okay now the instructions
are fairly straightforward. We're going to take our plastic strip here and we're going to first
dip it into some hot water, hotter than tap water but colder than boiling water, and there
are some specifications in here so if you have a thermometer you can use that or if
you're like me you're just going to use your finger to test the temperature. With that I'm
going to dip it until it turns clear and then we're going to fit it over your nose and stick
it to the mask. So let's start with the dipping. Okay so as for the instructions I have a towel
here to lay my stick on afterwards. I have my white stick and we're going to dip it in the
water. Now this water is a little warm there for my finger and so it's not too hot, I think that's
just right. So we're going to put that in there and what we're watching for is that it turns clear
and I'm not sure how long that's supposed to take but it's already getting bendy so I
don't think it's going to be very long. So we'll let that sit for a few seconds. Now i'm going to be using my cloth mask, now
this does have a wire in it but the wire actually does not prevent my glasses from fogging so it's
almost like we're going to double up on that today but if you have a mask without a
wire I think that would be just fine. Oh all right, so I'm just going to hold that in
a wee bit to get a little bit more of the edge. Now once it comes out we're going
to let it sit for 30 seconds and that's really to make sure it's
cool enough for us to work with, oh yes you can see the difference in the color
let's dip it a wee bit more for that top part. Now you don't want to dip it for too long
because it will become too stretchy. So let's let that cool for 30 seconds while we
get on to the next step, so push that aside. I'm going to get my mask ready and that
requires that I take some of the two-sided tape that comes in the kit and I apply it to my
mask where the plastic piece is going to sit all right so now what we need to do is remove
the backing of this double-sided tape and it's a little tricky not gonna lie I don't
have much for nails I think we got it there We'll try the other side here I did finally get this to separate
we're going to peel this off and just leave the sticky tacky on the mask. Okay so now I can see where my sticky is I'm going
to put my my nose guard in there I almost said mouth guard that's hockey that's hockey talking
I miss hockey all my hockey family out there Okay so you can see how this has shaped the mask
quite nicely there and now the real moment of truth is to put this on and see how it affects
fogging. From my previous videos there tends to be an awful lot of conversation around how my
glasses sit on my face, that they're crooked, that they're not sitting on properly so
I'm going to start with clean glasses, I'm going to put them on my ears,
this is just how they sit, okay, and now we're going to put on the
mask. So I've got my strip in there, it's all formed, I'm already getting fogging. It
doesn't feel like it's sitting proper let me just, I might need to remold that which
means I'm going to need another piece of tape. So let's just head to the office
and get set up. Now I will just share that the immediate sensation is I feel like it's a
bit of weight, it's pulling down on my face. I almost feel like it's kind of
pinching in on my nose a bit which is which is interesting because when I shaped it I
don't feel like I pushed it in so that my nasal cavities were going to feel squished but
I definitely feel the squish on this side, not on this side but what I notice is just kind
of this weight sitting on top of my nose. So we'll see how that goes. So why don't we get the
guy who made this stuff on the phone. Hey Dave Can you hear me okay? Hey how's it going? Good
how are you?Doing good. I've had my mask on for a while with your little piece in here, your nose
strip. Oh nice. Thought I'd try it out and come on live and let you know. Yeah how's it working
out? So far not bad, I think there might be some trial and error to just getting it to fit
proper but i've definitely noticed a reduction on the one side for the most part, tried it this
morning on my walk for a little bit and I had to come in and remold it and just kind of play
with it a little bit to get that right fit. Yeah yeah sometimes it does take a little bit
to get the right fit. Yeah that's kind of what I was thinking. So I thought you could
tell me a little bit about your product, how did you even come up with the idea? Because of
COVID, I um my background's in product design so I've done a lot of sporting goods work that dealt
with custom molding, sporting goods so like a lot of like um baseball elbow guards, since it's
custom molded the fit was really good to where you could put that it's strapped on but you could
put it onto your elbow and it would kind of just fit perfectly. I've dealt with a lot of custom
molding materials like that and my wife's a school teacher and she was having to go back to
school and she wears glasses and she was saying I don't know how I'm going to teach with my
glasses constantly fogging up and I thought well you know I looked at what was out there and
there were some products that kind of pinched the nose to kind of close that gap but then you
know it obstructs your breathing and I figured there had to have been a better there has to
be a better way so you know with my experience with custom molding products I thought well
if we just custom mold a strip right there it'd be kind of be perfect. So I kind of came
up with a really simple shape that seemed to be really effective. So it's just this kind of strip
here and once you mold it to that area of your nose bridge it really seals that gap. Yeah so as I
mentioned like this morning I tried it out before we came on the call because I wanted to have a
little bit of sense as to how the product worked. I have to tell you I'm obviously challenged in
following instructions. Yeah that's what I've kind of learned. I've - I did a quick video that wasn't
really the detailed instructions uh so I think a lot of people just rely on the quick video than
actually reading the instructions. So you know and I read them I'm like oh this is really easy, I
like it- it's dip fit stick that just you know all makes sense and when you mention the connection
to sports I have definitely worked with this kind of stuff with my son for hockey in terms of mouth
guards and heating them up and all that stuff so it felt familiar, but the first time I did it I um
I forgot to shape it to my face. I put it in the mask and then shaped it. I'm like okay how hard
is it to follow instructions Tamm. Let's go back re-warm it and try it a second. So you designed
this as a result of COVID, your wife's been using it with great success so why don't you give us
your what you've worked out. I'll use a, you know, kettle of boiling water and then throw some ice
cubes in it and use um use just like a thermometer that I use for grilling just to kind of make sure
that temperatures within that range because I've, you know, seen a big difference between
boiling water and kind of that sweet spot of 145 to 165. For sure and I don't have a
thermometer in my house so I was just going by the old skin test, your instructions
there about hotter than tap water but not so I caught it just before it was like boiling and
bubbling and I did notice a difference. The first time I didn't have it hot enough and it just kind
of sat there and I'm like how long should this take? Right yeah it should - it might be a better
test to say it should only take a few seconds for it to turn clear and I guess turning clear is a
good indication also that it's ready to mold. Yeah once you have to mold it it's kind of a trick
to kind of figure out where the center is um I tried to kind of make a custom perforations
to show where the center was but the factory wasn't able to do that so oh yeah I was gonna
say I didn't notice that this morning. Yeah uh I wanted to do it but maybe that's version
two but I just try and kind of center it here and then once it's kind of wet it kind of sticks
to your face. It's just a matter of kind of figuring out where that sweet spot is. Sometimes
I do it with my glasses to get it right under them um if you don't wear glasses it kind
of just depends on where your mask um you could you know put your mask on and then
put like a piece of you know masking tape like maybe above where it is just so you know or if you
if you wear the mask enough you might just kind of know that that's kind of where it is and then mold
it there. Yeah that's you have to use kind of all your fingers here to really push down and really
seal that gap because that's really the most important part is right here um that I've noticed.
Yeah and you know the face mask that I have this in it actually comes with a wire in it but it's
you know it's homemade it's not a sturdy wire and so that wasn't even enough to get a good
seal and I still had foggy glasses so it's been fun trying out your your device here. Now
is your wife that's using it and yourself are you using this just with cloth mask or have
you used it with the surgical mask as well? Um I guess I've used these disposable ones in a
cloth one. Yeah I mean this might just help you get it right yeah this is probably about boiling so yeah this is boiling water
or close to boiling and it's yeah it's like around 175. Okay so it's just a
little bit hotter than you would ideally want it to be yeah so just a couple ice cubes should
get it you know in the boiling water it should melt it pretty quick and that should be enough
to kind of get it to the ideal temperature. So is this in a prototype phase are you
selling these now where are you at with your company? Um well I did a Kickstarter so I
was able to pre-sell them and kind of get a manufacturing run and so now I fulfilled all
those orders so they are available on amazon now yeah. So that should - I probably put
this is a pretty big cup of water and I probably put six or seven ice cubes
in it and that kind of got us to probably right around 155 which is about right and
then once you dip it in you can kind of look at it and see how you'll see that it turns clear and
you'll see that it becomes really flexible. With boiling water it'll turn clear within a
couple seconds I guess at the correct temperature. I'd say it probably took about 10 seconds and then
I tell people I guess in the instructions not to put it directly on their face just because it's
hot so there's you have a couple minutes to um shape it, play around with it, and shape it,
so I usually put it on just like a paper towel or a dish towel just to get the excess water
off so people aren't also - I'm not putting a boiling hot water in um you can see on the
right side it's not molded because that's where I just dipped it in which is it's fine
because it's on that side of your face which shouldn't really affect kind of the molding
process but really I've done this enough where I can kind of feel it. It usually helps in front of
a mirror and I can kind of see myself on the zoom call but yeah just kind of going like this and
really pressing in here with all your fingers and just kind of giving it enough time to to really
cool and then form um. Yeah it didn't take long this morning. I found it it formed quickly. Yeah
and then uh kind of the nice part about it is you know it's clear when it's um moldable and then
it'll turn white so once it turns completely white then you know it's kind of time, it's rigid enough
that you can take it off and and kind of um, move into the next step, start the next step
yeah yeah. Which I totally did wrong. I put the tape on my mask and not the um strip which
I mean obviously it still worked in the end but it might be easier to work with if I did it
in the correct order. Yeah and then um I guess part of it once it's kind of a little wet it
kind of sticks to your face which is kind of nice it kind of sticks. I guess depending on your
nose shape um for me it kind of sticks without pressing it but it is kind of good
throughout the process to kind of keep kind of massaging it in not pushing too hard but
just kind of keeping the pressure on so it does get a nice mold of your face easier
yeah. So I did work with 3M to develop this tape specifically for these. A lot of the
samples I got really smelled like a chemical smell just with the adhesive because I
wanted a really strong adhesive to be able to make sure it sticks and
could possibly re-stick a few times so this sticks really well and it doesn't have a
strong adhesive smell because when it's in your mask and there's that strong smell it's not
ideal. Yeah yeah I didn't notice any smell to it at all today, nothing. Right yeah that's good
because some of the samples I got initially were not good. Yeah um so it seems pretty rigid
now so I could take it off yeah so this yeah it's um I've found it's best to take a strip
off and keep the the backing on it until you you could either start from the middle or just, rise
it so they can see, yeah sorry about that that's okay um and then kind of what I found too is
it's okay if sometimes um the the shape you might you might have to kind of fold it to crease it
and that's fine if there's some creases just to make sure you can follow that that curve
because because if you sometimes just try and stick it flat it'll kind of go off the side on
you. Yeah so it's fine if you kind of have to fold it a little bit just to get it on there and
then once you get it on there kind of nice and strong you can press just like any tape them
you need to you know press it pretty solid to get it to stick good and then then once you
press it on there really good then then it's best to remove that that other piece of tape or the
other, yeah the plastic, plastic piece yeah because because some users have told me it's
really hard to deal with the double-sided tape because it is so sticky so I guess I didn't make
it clear that it's easiest to stick it on with this piece on and then remove it so then you're
not trying to stick it on and then your thumb is kind of getting stuck to it. So yeah so once
that's on then you can attach it to whichever mask you prefer and then again like I - you can
easily kind of get mixed up which sides out so just to give it a quick like fit test oh good
idea to try and figure out because I've noticed some people it's kind of a 50 50 chance whether
it's up or not so if they put it in there upside down then it's not going to be the correct seal
so you know that way is up for me so then I just I can fold the mask in half to try and find the
center point here and then just kind of stick the center of it on, yeah, and just stick it
on, just hold it in there, yeah and then and then just like when you stuck the tape onto the
strip really press down hard to really you know adhere the mask to it and that it's a strong
adhesive that should should really hold and and it is slightly um it stretches a little
bit so sometimes when you put it on this gap here might not be fully pressed down. So this is
kind of the main area where you want to make sure to press down and you're able to put the mask on
you know like you would in another mask and then and now I think there's some. So I as you know
I've done a few videos on masks, cloth masks, surgical masks for fit for um exercise for fogging
glasses and I think there's some pieces that even I didn't talk about in my first videos that
are important because glass size is important, head size is important, what kind of feedback
are you getting like are people saying have you noticed that particular types of glasses like
ours, the ones you have and I have are quite big, and so they do hang down a little farther
are you finding any feedback about that? Um not too much now because because
since it is a custom fit it's really a relatively thin piece of plastic so there's
once you mold it to your face it doesn't really get in the way and it's it is surprising how
different everybody's body is you would think that maybe it's within a certain range but you
see you know I'll look at these different strips and it's very just looking at two people's faces
you thought you think they might be similar but then you look at their nose strip and they're
very different so yeah. I found that you know it's it kind of takes a guesswork out of it. I
was surprised how big my nose was. Yeah that's what I was saying and it sometimes depends
on kind of where you put it if it's kind of towards the tip it might look a lot bigger than if
it's you know up here higher because some people they wear their mask high have a mask that you
know goes higher so that's that's kind of why I was saying it's surprising how how different
those shapes are. So the only population I was thinking of that this would be a challenge for
are those who have dexterity issues they would need to have somebody help them with the tape part
- that was my that was really my only criticism as I kind of worked through the process. I mean
aside from the fact I didn't follow instructions because I kind of - I read them and then
as I started I just jumped ahead which is somewhat typical of me sometimes. No
that's I think typical of most people with that. I think this is a pretty decent
product. I was impressed with how it worked after I kind of got used to it and yeah I'm
going to play around with it again and do another like a third kind of remolding and just kind of
really work through that and see if I can get a better fit because I was noticing a little bit
of fog with just the one side so but definitely an improvement. Well thanks for watching. If you
are looking to get a hold of your own strips so that you can mold them and reuse them over and
over and over again, go ahead down in the links in the description box below you're going to see
the links for his training video and his products that you can access to use yourself. Now as
you've noticed I've been talking with you for a while here my glasses are no longer fogging up
with this device and so I think this is a pretty viable option for those of you who are looking for
something to help reduce the fog while you work Until next time guys make it a great day :)
