KEYS, WALLET, face mask. In just a few short months, the cloth face covering—once a concept Americans only saw while overseas—has become an essential item, required in many public places. It’s hard to think of an another accessory that so radically and rapidly became integral to our daily lives, except perhaps for the smartphone. “I would say this is one of the biggest short-term booms we’ve ever seen…from a wearable product,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry adviser at the NPD Group, a market research firm.While medical workers often rely on heavy-duty masks like the N95 with its superior filtration abilities, most of us make do with simple cloth masks to pick up sushi or walk our stir-crazy mutts. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that “people wear masks in public and when around people who don’t live in your household.”). But the abundance of masks on the market has made choosing one a guessing game.
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