FLTR - General Face Mask

Review

Video Transcript

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the place where we are testing every single mask in the world. That's right. And thank you to viewers like Carolina for sticking with us. She sent us a bunch of masks. I'm going to test them all.

Very excited to get the FLTR mask. At least I think that's how you say it. It's from Costco. We've tested that before. This is a different one though, so I haven't tested this one yet. So let's put it in the clamp, see what happens. FLTR, like a lot of Costco products, should be a very high quality, good quality product. I think let's test this one and see if it matches with what our last test was. This is a PFE machine, particularly filtration efficiency machine. If you want to find out more about what this thing does, check out that link.

And remember we are testing just the filtration here. We're not testing the fit. Not possible to do with the machine. Well, it is, but it's actually right here, the machine, but it's a lot more complicated. So we're not doing that, but you need both things when choosing a mask. All right, let's actually look at their website. I don't know if you can buy this ... yeah, you can just buy this from Costco. So any Costco is going to have this. We actually bought it on Amazon before, like I was mentioning. I'm looking ... FLTR general use face mask. I love the design and the brand. I think it's great. They started during the pandemic. I believe it says that company is Bellevue, Washington, but I'm pretty sure this is manufactured in China, if I remember correctly. Yeah, made in China.

But what they've done ... and look at this, they've got the lot code and everything like that. What they've done is they made this in China, but I mean, they just did ... they basically did a really good job making a great brand. General use face mask, soft touch box, of course. Seeing if that says not for medical use. So it cannot eliminate the risk of contracting an infectious disease. I love this disclaimer, because it's like, "But wait, isn't COVID infectious disease?" Yes. They're just covering their bases there. Trying to see if they're making any claims ... yeah, so they've got this tiny claim here, 95% filtration for pollen, dust, and other air particulates. I think they just missed that last time, the number. Let's open this up. They're not individually packing these things, but they're putting them in these packs of five or 10, which is great.

Yeah, here's the quality certificate from China. Look at this, they got instructions. Never seen that before. That's really cool. They're reiterating 95% filtration from pollen, dust, and other air particulates, which is a super generic thing. It's not really telling you how big are the particulates. We're using 0.1 micron latex particles here for this test, the same as the ASTM test. For the testing nerds out there, it's the F2100 test. So it's a really nice mask. They are just nailing the design quality. The spun bond on this is just beautiful. It's the outer layer, I can just tell it's very consistent. I seem to remember there ear loops being really good. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. I can tell if I pull a little bit more, it's going to ... ow! If it hurts when you break it, you know it's not going to break on your face.

That's what she said.

I would say that's really good. It's not the strongest. I think that ... no, it's pretty good. Okay, so last time we tested it, it tested at 91 point what?

91.69.

91.69, which is well below their claims of 95%, but they're probably going to come back and say, "Well, we didn't say what size the particulates." And it's like, well, yeah, you're misleading people. So not cool, FLTR. This mask smells. I would call this smell a Chinese mask. It's just the smell these Chinese masks have. It's a very plasticy-type smell, not unbearable. It's right in the middle of the thing and it's a greatly constructed item. The nose wears a little bit smaller than I want it to be, but again, I don't think this is going to break. Oh, maybe. I don't know, it's pretty good. All right.

But does any that matter if it doesn't protect you? Remember, last time they hit 91. They're claiming 95 though on the box. They're not being specific about that, but I'm going to call them, they're claiming 95 on the box. And the minimum standards in the United States, an ASTM level one mask is 95%, so they should be hitting 95. What do they got? 91 last time. What do you think? Ah, 93.831.

93.831. Not ideal. Now look, typically when you're testing a bunch of masks, you would test probably 20 or 30 and take the average. I'm going to give them the fact that this could be a low test, plus I don't know how these masks were stored. Carolina, I don't know what you're doing. So it could be that maybe they weren't stored properly, so that brought down the percentage a little bit. I'm not going to say for sure that this is not meeting the standards, but it is pretty far off.

So look, if you're in a pitch, you want cheap masks, and you want masks from China, honestly I would just buy ... if I had a Costco membership, knowing what I knew about masks, I'd probably just buy FLTR masks to be honest. But if I was really wanting to support American manufacturing, there are plenty of good masks, like DemeTECH and some others out there that are going to consistently hit 99 every single time. And sometimes those extra percentage points do help. All right, thank you guys so for watching. Thank you Carolina for sending me this mask. Send me more masks. Not Carolina, you sent enough.

You've done enough, but other people, send me your masks. I'll put a link right below. Thank you so much. See you on the next test.

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