This Guy Bought and Tested Every Mask Available on Amazon Prime

What mask is best at protecting you in year three of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially if cloth masks aren’t cutting it?

One helpful resource might be a company that claims it bought every mask available on Amazon Prime and tested them.

Armburst is a Texas-based manufacturer of masks with a very pro-America bent. “When COVID-19 hit our shores in 2020, we experienced the worst case scenario, unable to supply our own frontline heroes with critical personal protective equipment (PPE),” as the company notes on their website. “The market was absolutely flooded with cheap, flimsy, and downright unsafe masks made overseas.”

Last year, in the company’s lab, Armburst claims they tested the Particulate Filter Efficiency (PFE) capabilities of hundreds of surgical, non-medical 3-ply, N95, KN95, KF94 and cloth masks — and on their YouTube site, they continue to provide more in-depth reviews of masks several times per week. The masks they buy are tested for filtration, breathability, standards (“does the mask adhere to the basic rules laid out by the standard they are claiming,” e.g. is what is claiming to be a KN95 mask meeting those KN95 requirements) and subjective scores for construction/comfort and smell. The company also stresses that these are “opinions” only.

(Hilariously, in the video below, owner Lloyd Armbrust discovers his wife’s photo wearing a competitor’s mask — that mask brand had apparently just ripped off the pic from Armburst’s site and applied a filter.)

You can sort the list by five different categories, but you probably want to look at “pass” or “fail” as your ultimate decider. This N95 mask by 3M scored 100% on PFE, for example; this KN95, on the other hand, was the only one to score a 0.

Overall, you have to take the reviews with the knowledge this company is a competitor to the ones they’re reviewing — though, based on their videos, they seem to acknowledge good and bad with any brand they mention (and they did test their own). Consider this and like-minded testers like Aaron Collins good resources when you’re trying to navigate Amazon or your local drugstore for a mask that’s going to live up to its protection claims.