@trendless @novid

Up front I'm going to say I don't know anything about these guys, or their masks. I was looking and noticed they use something called "Polygiene ViralOff" in some of their products, so I thought I'd look into the science of that and maybe it would give me some insight into the company and their values.

Bottom line, I didn't have a ton of luck getting much info on it in a quick search if you don't want to read the rest of my post.

The "Polygiene ViralOff" is, chemically speaking, called "reaction mass of titanium dioxide and silver chloride." The company that makes ViralOff says that it passed testing under ISO18184:2019 for textiles for antiviral activity(https://www.iso.org/standard/71292.html). It appears this standard is undergoing revision and hasn't been accepted by ANSI. Doesn't mean it isn't a good test, but, it's relatively new.

The ViralOff itself appears to have been put up for European approval as an antiviral twice, once in 2020(https://chemycal.com/news/03f4007f-fe40-4be3-8615-a7ca5a672b82/ECHA__Two_Biocidal_substances_under_review) and once in 2023(https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32023D0458). Both times it was rejected because the company putting it up for approval withdrew their interest.

Polygiene's claims on the product are here(https://keelaoutdoors.com/viraloff/) and they make no "health claims" and say "For instance, a face covering will never stop viruses from going through it, but we can ensure viruses don’t live in and on it for long."

Just for completeness' sake, it's also the active ingredient in a brand of cat litter(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Felight-Non-Clumping-Antibacterial-Silverfresh-Technology/dp/B07S3QQXXG?th=1).

I can't find any published data on it, so I really don't know if it works or not. Just be careful explicitly trusting your health with this kind of stuff that doesn't have a bunch of data out there and available.