…another mask project.

Our motivation is simple. The pandemic isn’t going away any time soon but neither is our environmental crisis. Science shows masks and face coverings are an effective strategy for slowing the spread of COVID-19, which is why governments all over the world are mandating them. But only if everyone wears them. Unfortunately, people (especially young people) still aren’t wearing them, or if they are, many people chose options which are made of— you guessed it—plastic. If we can help keep people safe while preventing more plastics from ending up in landfill, we’re going to do whatever we can.

Yes!… Well, actually, we sell face coverings. In fact, most sellers you see are likely selling face coverings while calling them face masks. Yes, we know it’s confusing, which is why we wrote an entire article about it. You can read more about the distinctions here. But it you’d like to check out our collection, you can find them on our shop page!

Short answer: We want to make masks… better!

Long answer: With many recognising masks as a big business opportunity, companies have been quick to offer a range of different—sometimes dubious—performance claims. And with more and more players in the game, the price race has begun, eerily echoing what we witnessed in fashion (and most other physical goods) over the last two decades.

Everyone seems to be trying to edge each other out to offer the cheapest version of the same thing everyone else is selling. Which in this case, may come at the expense of not only the people making these products, but those of us now required to wear often uncomfortable and untested face coverings that might not actually work as well as clever advertising leads us to believe.

But maybe the mask opportunity could actually be a chance for fashion to do better—for our communities and our environment. You can read more about why we we decided to make masks here.

If you have seen our previous work growing materials from bacteria, this isn’t such a weird question. But no, we didn’t. And no, the materials aren’t made by bacteria. But they’re made by humans, who grew the cotton, manned the textile machinery, and stitched them together (in the UK!).

We won’t pretend to be perfect, but we did make the best product we could with the limited time and resources available to us. And with your support, we hope to get back in the lab with our microbes very soon.

Quite frankly, we’re a small team and don’t expect to make huge profits on this project. Revenues will be reinvested in job creation, biomaterial R&D, and paying struggling creatives to make educational content aimed at protecting both people and the planet.

The easiest way to help is to please, please wear a  face covering or mask yourself to slow the spread of the virus and set an example for others. If you want to collaborate or work with us, contact us here.

Irony. Come on, guys.

But in all seriousness, our aim for this project is that it becomes irrelevant in 6 months, 12 months, however long it takes to get a handle on this pandemic and back to doing all the things we’d much rather be doing. And let’s be realistic, we’re a small team and can’t possible supply the whole world, but maybe it’ll inspire a few other mask projects with similar values so we can truly become just …another mask project.

We have big dreams. We want to do our part to help eliminate fashion industry plastic and chemical pollution and empower truly circular creation with science, specifically, biology and material science. We believe we can still learn a lot from nature to make things in a way that won’t hurt people or the planet. But changes this big are hard work and are going to take some time. We need to share the little wins just as much as the big ones. And maybe in doing so we can inspire others to try and help us.