Almost overnight masks have gone from medical to mainstream. Hong Kong-based TAL saw the opportunity not only to make masks, but also to make better masks.
The company has a legacy of manufacturing tailored men’s wear, and they used those skills to develop masks that offer your protection and comfort. They also put some R & D into materials.
Many people might wonder: “how do you make a face mask better?” It seems like a pretty standard item. You can ratchet up the level of protection for healthcare workers, which is very important, but not necessarily needed for typical consumer use.
Thinking out of the box, TAL realized that beyond medical grade protection, there were many areas where improvements would benefit people who wore masks during their daily lives.
Starting from simply trying to provide protection for their workers, TAL engineered a face mask for consumers that offers greater comfort, is sustainable, and provides enhanced virus protection.
Getting Started
“We started this massive journey back in January to provide masks to our own employees. We have 26,000 employees worldwide and when COVID broke out we wanted to provide masks in a sustainable way. When people heard about our masks, our customers, they wanted it for their associates.
“The next thing we knew we were fully in the mask business and after shipping about 50 million masks, we said, ‘you know what? Let’s engineer the best consumer mask on the market,” said Kathleen Trainor, senior vice president – sales & merchandising at TAL Apparel.
“We have a lot of chemists and product engineers on board, and we did a lot of testing. We really wanted to create a mask that’s about protection, breathability and comfort.
Comfort is a key factor because that’s one of the key reasons why many consumers are so resistant to wearing masks.
“We wanted to provide a higher level of protection than what’s typically on the consumer market, however we were not trying to be a medical grade mask,” she told Inside Fashion.
“We are a consumer mask, so trying to hit the BFE and PFE or the filtration efficiency of a filter of at least 85%. Most of our masks are at 95% microns, which offers a very high level of protection,” she added.
“What’s interesting is that most regular masks don’t really protect from viruses. We are an engineering company, we’re known for our R&D in engineering,” said Roger Lee, chief executive of TAL.
TAL Apparel is a Hong Kong-based company that has a legacy of specializing in high quality tailored menswear.
“Actually, most masks don’t protect from viruses, because you need a 0.1 micron filter in order to stop the virus from entering into your system. Most of the masks on the market are designed to block pollution, which can only filter down to 2.5 microns.
“Our aim was to keep a 0.1 micron filter that was at 95% efficiency after 20 washes. There’s no one else that we’ve seen that has been able to do that,” said Mr. Lee.
The key, for consumers, is that the mask can be washed without destroying the filter.
While the filter can block the virus, it doesn’t kill it. So TAL added an anti-microbial finish on the outside and inside, which kills the virus over time.
It’s not a hundred percent, but 99% of the viruses over time get killed. To enhance its effectiveness, TAL added an antimicrobial finish. And then to be extra cautious, they added another water repellent finish on the outside. In case someone sneezes at you, those droplets don’t penetrate through the mask.
Balancing Breathability with Protection
“We have not been able to engineer masks that you can use while playing sports.
If you want to have protection, you can’t have the breathability that you need in a sports environment,” said Mr. Lee.
So it really is a function of science. If you want it to be breathable in a sports environment, then you can’t have the protection.
3D Modeling for a Better Mask
Disposable masks are quite flat and not designed to fit the human face.
“Those masks are very easy to make. You simply buy a machine. You buy the raw material and just churn out those disposable masks that everyone’s wearing. Our masks cannot be done by machine because they’re done in a 3-D shape.
“That 3-D shape is very hard to automate using automated machines. So we’re using our skill set as being one of the best needlework people in the world to make those masks. When you do curve shapes you cannot use automated machines to achieve those curves,” said Mr. Lee.
“We have the capability to do 3-D modeling which is what we do today for clothing. So we used this technology to figure out the best fitting masks,” he said.
They took the N 95 masks – by definition and 95, masks must fit five different shapes of faces snuggly with a hundred percent seal – as a benchmark and used them as a standard of sorts to achieve the best possible protection.
“We’re not looking for the 100% seal that the N95 requires. We’re looking to enhance fit. We’ve scanned a lot of shapes and we’ve figured out that three adult shapes work for over 97% of the population, in terms of how comfortable they are,” he said.
TAL also offers children’s sizes to cover the range from four to nine or 10 and then from 10 and above for teenagers.
The masks also feature adjustable ear loops to further customize the fit. All of this helps prevent chafing, while providing more space around the nose and mouth area.
“If you have the right fit around the nose, even if we wear glasses, they won’t fog up. People like to be able to speak and not have something stuck to your mouth. So if you notice what we’ve actually done, it’s kind of a shape coming out from the nose, but still touches your chin. It goes around the mouth, but still touches the chin,” said Mr. Lee.
The design provides sufficient room for the wearer to talk without have the mask getting stuck to their mouth.
The extra space also enhances breathability because you don’t have a piece of fabric right against your nose.
“We had a choice to make: be first to market or be the second to market by becoming the best mask. We chose the latter,” said Mr. Lee.
