Author: Jean-Baptiste

If you are looking to improve air quality in any type of beauty salon then stick around, you are in the right place. Be it nail bars, spas, hair salons, or multi-services beauty salons, a thing I have seen many beauty salons ignore is their air quality. 

Improving air quality in your salon is not only good for you and your clients’ health but could see you retaining more clientele if you manage to create a relaxing environment with cool and fresh air. 

Great customer experience and ambiance can set you apart from the competition in this industry and providing your patrons with good quality air is part of this. 

The last thing anyone wants when getting a massage or their nails done is bad and toxic odors. No one also wants to get all sweaty and sticky because of high humidity levels.

To ensure good air quality in a beauty salon, a combination of a professional-grade air purifier, source capture system, and well-designed general HVAC system is key. A highly recommended air purifier for beauty salons is the EnviroKlenz Mobile Air System.

Besides using an air purifier, if you wanna get top-notch air quality in your salon, there are several other things you have to look into. Accordingly, n this blog post, I not only show you which air purifiers will get you results in your salon but I also walk you through all the nitty-gritty of getting things right when operating an air purifier in your beauty salon.

In case there is anything you may have not considered regarding why you should get a beauty salon air purifier, let’s start by taking an in-depth look at why it’s important to clean the air in your salon.

Why You Shouldn’t Think Twice About Improving The Air Quality In Your Beauty Salon

One of the main reasons anyone looks for a beauty salon air purifier or anything to that effect is because they are worried about the strong toxic odors in their salon. At times the odors might be so bad causing some people a headache or dizziness.

If you think that’s bad, what’s worse is your air quality issue in your salon is beyond just the toxic odors and noticeable immediate effects on your body. There are invisible, unnoticeable, and odorless pollutants in your salon that can cause serious long term health issues, especially for staff and anyone who is at the salon daily.

Countless research has found a host of dangerous air pollutants, present in a beauty salon’s hair. When it comes to air quality in your beauty salon, the main thing you should be worried about is you, your staff, and your clients’ health.

To see how serious this is, and to show you how important it is that you do something about your salon’s air quality, I have summarized in the table below, all the chemicals you will encounter in a beauty salon and the health risks they cause. 

This table applies to all types of beauty salons including spas, nail salons, hair salons, and cosmetics stores. 

Also, the focus in the table is on all toxic chemicals from treatments you do in your salon. So all these chemicals are present in your indoor air on top of all the other pollutants coming in from other non-salon sources.

Common Salon Air Pollutants

Airborne Pollutant	Price
Ammonia	Eye, Mucous Membrane And Respiratory Irritation, Allergies
Ethyl acetate	Headaches And Irritated Eyes, Skin, Nose, Mouth, And Throat.
Benzene	Decrease In Red Blood Cells Leading To Anemia, Cancer, Drowsiness, Dizziness, Rapid Or Irregular Heartbeat, Headaches, Tremors, Confusion, Unconsciousness
Dichloromethane	Coughing, Wheezing, And/Or Shortness Of Breath
Ethanol	Pain And Irritation To The Nose And Throat, Headaches, Fatigue
Isobutane	Irritate The Nose, Throat, Dizziness, Lightheadedness, Irregular Heartbeat And Passing Out
Isopropanol	Sleepiness, Irritation To Eyes, Skin, Nose, Mouth And Throat, Headache, Dizziness, Confusion, Loss Of Coordination, Unconsciousness
N-Hexane	Dizziness, Giddiness, Slight Nausea, Headache, Polyneuropathy,  Numbness, Muscular Weakness, Blurred Vision, Headache, And Fatigue
Hydrogen Peroxide	Irritation Of The Eyes, Throat, Respiratory Airway, And Skin
Toluene Formaldehyde Dibutyl phthalate	Sometimes Referred To As The “Toxic Three”. Headaches, Dizziness, Anxiety, Euphoria, Fatigue, Numbness, Irritation To Eyes, Nose, Throat, And Lungs, Damage To Kidneys, Livers, Asthma-like Attacks, Wheezing,  Cancer, Allergic Reactions And Harm To Unborn Children During Pregnancy.
Acetone	Headaches, Dizziness, Irritated Eyes, Nose And Skin, Depression, Nausea, Vomiting
Acetonitrile	Irritated Eyes, Skin And Throat, Difficulty Breathing, Coughing, Asthma-like Attacks, And Wheezing And Allergic Reactions.
Cyanoacrylate	Irritated Eyes, Skin And Throat, Difficulty Breathing, Coughing, Asthma-like Attacks, And Wheezing And Allergic Reactions
Ethyl methacrylate	Asthma, Irritated Eyes, Skin, Nose, And Mouth. High Levels Can Affect Concentration. Exposure While Pregnant Can Affect Your Child.
Titanium Dioxide	Lung Fibrosis, Cancer

I can expand on the table by getting into detail about what processes produce each of the airborne toxins, but I think the point that needs to be taken here is the serious health risks you put yourself and others in if you do not improve your Salon’s air quality.

Also stemming from the health issues, the other reasons you want to ensure good air quality in your salon is because you want to stay ahead and on top of regulatory authorities and you also want your staff to remain productive.

As workplace health and safety regulations improve, indoor air quality is increasingly becoming an important issue on many labor and environmental authorities’ lists and it’s a matter of time before beauty salons start having to comply with more demanding indoor air quality requirements if they wish to continue operating.

As a beauty salon owner, it’s only to your advantage, if you start improving your salons’ air quality before any air quality inspector comes knocking at your door. Next, if your employees get sick often, or maybe they always show up to work but seem sluggish in terms of performance, bad salon air quality might just be the reason.

There is no research backing this, but just the fact that you have bad air quality in your salon could see the adverse effects on your employees’ health eating into your business’s profits. So, you wanna look into improving your air quality to make sure you get rid of a factor among many that could negatively be affecting productivity.

One last crucial reason you should not think twice about your salon air quality is customer experience. I have passed by many salons and I feel even if your salon has awesome interiors, the toxic air that meets me as I walk past your salon’s entrance can send me searching for greener pastures.

Besides the smell, temperature and humidity are also a big factor for a lot of clients. If your beauty shop has a spa humidity can be an issue if you have a sauna or jacuzzi in there. 

Many customers, especially if they have severe asthma or some respiratory condition, even avoid going to hair salons because of the fumes and odors on top of humidity issues. 

When anyone enters a beauty salon of any sort, the last thing they want to feel is hot and sticky and with overpowering chemical smells shooting up their nose. You want your customers to come into a place that feels right and has a pleasant natural smell. 

Fortunately, in addition to using a good salon air purifier, you can achieve all this through the various salon air quality improvement measures I am going to show you.

But before we go on, to summarize and quickly recap everything I have said here, there are 4 main reasons you seriously need to invest in improving the air quality in your salon and they are,

1. To avoid the highly detrimental health effects of common salon air pollutants 
2. To ensure compliance with ever-changing workplace health and safety regulations
3. To maintain you and your staff’s productivity and your salon’s derived profitability
4. To provide an awesome customer experience to your clients

4 Powerful Air Purifiers For Beauty Salons

If you have read this far, I think by now you appreciate that improving air quality in your salon is something you can’t ignore. So, to help you get the best air quality in your salon, an air purifier is most certainly a much-needed appliance.

There are many air purifiers on the market and you might think getting one for your salon is just a matter of buying any odd model you can find online or at your local appliance store. Unfortunately for a salon, you have to be extra careful what air purifier you get.

With all the chemicals flying around your indoor air daily, it’s like you are running a mini air polluting factory and ordinary household air purifiers simply won’t work in a salon. They are just not built to handle heavily polluted air like in a salon environment.

The kind of air purifiers you should be looking at are heavy-duty purifiers. Depending on the size of your salon, you should be going for something close to an entry-level industrial air purifier. 

The purifier should have filters capable of dealing with chemicals and fine air particles that are not visible to the naked eye. So go for devices packed with a lot of carbon for the chemicals and nanoparticle HEPA filters or Photocatalytic Oxidation (PCO) filters to deal with ultrafine particulate pollutants.

 I have written about these different types of air purifiers in detail here.

Based on the criteria I have given, you can go on a wild goose chase to find the right air purifier for your salon but luckily air purifier manufacturers have recognized the need for air quality improvement in the beauty industry, and these days its much easier to find air purifiers that are tailor-made for beauty salons. 

Some devices are stand-alone and you can just plug and play them while others have to be specially fitted for your environment. Keeping that in mind, here are 4 air purifiers that have proven effective for beauty salons.

1. EnviroKlenz Mobile Air System

First on the list is the largely overlooked EnviroKlenz air purifier. I must say in terms of looks, this air purifier is an ugly duckling. However, it greatly compensates for its looks through its performance. Actual tests run and comparison upon comparison by various independent users shows the EnviroKlenz outperforms other popular air purifiers like the IQ air and Molekule in its league.

This purifier does an awesome job with VOCs, Odors, and other dangerous airborne chemicals in a salon and works really well for particulate matter too. Its performance in filtering airborne toxins such as those you find in beauty salons is simply superior. The secret lies in the design of their filtration system.

Most air purifiers with an activated carbon filter, eventually off-gas once the filter is full because they simply absorb gasses and store them instead of destroying them. The EnviroKlenz on the other hand has an activated carbon filter that does not just absorb chemicals and odors but reacts with them and neutralizes them so they don’t return into the air. 

The filter also uses much less carbon to achieve better results than other air purifiers. What’s more, if you are also worried about germs, bacteria, and viruses in the air, you can get a model that comes with UV light that irradiates and destroys such organisms. The UV light also destroys any organisms like mold that may grow on your HEPA filter, ensuring your device does not end up causing a recontamination of your air accordingly.

This air purifier is also very easy to maintain compared to most salon air purifiers. You simply wipe it, and to replace its filters, you open, remove and then reinsert new cartridges with no need for any tools. The downside of the EnviroKlenz air purifier is that it is limited to a salon size of up to 1000 square feet.

Based on a rule of thumb when it comes to determining air purifier sizes, this means if you want to get the most out of this air purifier, go for it if your salon size is no bigger than 800 square feet. If your salon is bigger than 1000 square feet you would rather go for a device with a bigger coverage capacity of at least 200 sq. ft. more.

If you have a space that’s approaching 2000 square feet then you might consider getting two air purifiers. The other downside with this purifier is that its HEPA filter only filters air up to 0.3 microns. There are purifiers with Hospital Grade HEPA filters that go as low as 0.01 microns. 

This works against you if you have treatments in your salon that produce such ultrafine particles. For example, nail filing dust can get as small as 0.1 microns and this will pass right through a HEPA filter that can capture particles down to 0.3 microns. That said, this air purifier is still a powerful tool for improving air quality in your salon, especially when used together with other measures.

2. IQAir GCX MultiGas

The next air purifier worth considering is the IQAir GCX MultiGas (available on Amazon). IQAir has a range of air purifiers but their recommendations for the kind of pollutants you find in a beauty salon is the GCX MultiGas. It will deal with odors and chemicals and it captures particles down to 0.3 microns. 

This air purifier does a great job but from research, I found the EnviroKlenz does better and so I had to put it here as my second choice.

If for whatever reason you fail to get the EnviroKlenz the GCX MultiGas is a good substitute. This air purifier’s coverage does not differ too much from others in its range. However, IQAir’s filters will cost you much more compared to the filters of air purifiers from other brands.

If you have multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), you also cannot use the standard activated carbon filters and have to go for a VOC filter which filters a narrower range of chemicals in your salon air.

This is unlike the EnviroKlenz which has a single filter that caters to everyone including MCS sufferers. IQAir also uses potassium permanganate in the standard multigas filter and they admit this will trigger an allergic reaction for some people.

If that’s the case for you then you have to switch to their GCX VOC filter which is designed for more sensitive people. That said, don’t get me wrong, the IQAir GCX will do a good job in cleaning your salon’s air but if its downsides when it comes to MCS sufferers are a concern for you and your clients, rather go for another option.

3. Electrocorp Vocarb Air Purifier 8000

If you have a large salon, I’m talking 1500 square feet to about 2000 square feet, then the Electrocorp 800 Vocarb purifier is a good HEPA and activated carbon purifier option.

It is a portable air purifier specifically made for small industrial environments where gases, fumes, odors, chemicals, biological contaminants, dust, and other airborne particles. It can get rid of particles in your air that are as small as 0.1 microns, better than both the  EnvironKlenz and IQAir GCX.

The air purifier doubles as a fume extractor and can also be connected to your HVAC. It has multiple green features, but what stands out most for me is that its Styrofoam free and has a metal casing. 

This means minimal chances of any strange smells and off-gassing from your purifier and that it will work well even for people with multiple chemical sensitivities.

Besides adequate HEPA filtration, the Electrocorp 8000 Vocarb has a 48 pounds commercial-grade, super-activated carbon filter that easily gets rid of tough chemical fumes like benzene, hydrogen sulfide gas, TCE, solvent and paint fumes, and many more you will find in a salon.

Your carbon filter can also be modified to specifically remove certain compounds in your salon on request. Also, with much more carbon in weight than most purifiers, your carbon filter easily lasts much longer than other air cleaners. 

You can also add a UV filter to this air purifier if you are concerned about airborne viruses. No air purifier is perfect, but from my research, this one is among those that will do an awesome job if you have a large salon ranging between 1000 to 2000 square feet. 

It may seem pricey at first glance but it’s way more cost-effective than buying multiple smaller air purifiers, from a coverage and filter maintenance perspective. 

Upwards of $300, the filters are certainly expensive if you need to buy them often. Fortunately, you get what you pay for here. The filters last long enough (over 6 months depending on your pollution levels) and you will see results. 

4. Amaircare 4000

This is another great small to medium industrial space air purifier that will work great for a large salon. You can get it in two versions.

One comes with a HEPA filter and a 7-pound carbon filter with the option of a foam pre-filter while another comes with only a 30-pound carbon filter.

The HEPA version is for you if you are concerned about both chemical and particle pollutants in your air while the pure carbon option is only for dealing with chemicals, fumes, VOCs, and other gaseous pollutants.

This purifier can clean air in a room of up to 2600 square feet. It has steel housing, making it generally environmentally friendly as it’s designed not to off-gas. The Amaircare 4000 (product link to Amazon) is cheaper than the Electrocorp 8000 air purifier. 

However, you cannot hook it up to your HVAC and it does not have a fume extractor arm feature. What is also annoying is how you have to choose whether you want an air purifier that deals largely with particles of chemicals. 

Nonetheless, you may be in a situation where you just want something that gets rid of airborne chemicals, and if that’s the case, certainly go for the pure carbon option of this purifier. 

Amaircare is well known in this industry for quality and performance and you won’t be disappointed. Your filters should cost you just under $300 and should last you over 6 months depending on how polluted your salon’s air is. 

So these are the four air purifiers I know get results in a salon setting. Of course, there are other options out there. For instance, I found the Airvia Pro 150 or Aerovax Systems’ The One That Works.  

However, from my experience and research, I am always led back to the above four when considering purifiers for a salon setting. If you want good results and something that works, go for the 4 options I have mentioned or upgraded versions of these options.

3 Steps To Get The Best Air Quality With Air Purifiers In Your Beauty Salon

Now that I have shown you the top five air purifier options that I found worth trying for your salon, the next thing you need to do is to know how to use an air purifier effectively in a salon setting.

As much as you may notice improvements just by installing a good quality salon air purifier, an air purifier, unfortunately, won’t get you optimal air quality on its own. 

For best results in a beauty salon, besides positioning your air purifier properly and getting the correct size air purifier, your air purifier needs to be used with devices such as source-capture ventilators, extractors, HVAC filters/air purifiers, dehumidifiers, and air conditioners.

I have written a lot about air purifier positioning and sizes for best results already so here I will focus on the additional equipment you need and how they work together with your air purifier. 

The ideal salon air purifier setup is a system that considers three aspects, namely the breathing-zone, the workstation/room, and lastly the entire salon building. 

Putting in place such a system with all these appliances may not be feasible in every salon setting. Regardless, the idea here is to set up everything you possibly can to reduce pollution in your salon as much as possible.

Step 1: Clean The Breathing-Zone

The breathing zones of your salon are places where the treatments are being done. So this could be your hairstyling chair, manicure table, or massage table. To supplement your air purifier, it’s recommended you install source capture ventilators or fumes/particle extractors directly where you treat your clients.

There are a variety of salon specific source capture systems out there. You have ceiling-based extractors with a movable pipe which is usually called an arm and also stand-alone extractors/source capture systems. Specifically for nail bars, you also have manicure tables with built-in extractors or portable tabletop fumes and particle extractors. 

All these suck some airborne chemicals and particles immediately as you are carrying out treatment on your client. I think I should mention as a side note that you can use the words extractors and source capture ventilators interchangeably. 

Step 2: Clean The Room/Workstation

The room or workstation aspect of your salon air purifying system refers to an individual room in your salon where a beauty treatment is being carried out. So this could be the sauna room, massage room, storage room, nail barroom, or a room where multiple types of treatments are being carried out. 

Whatever your room set up, when looking at the room aspect of your system, this is where your chosen air purifier fits in. Your air purifier works to clean the air in the entire room and captures the airborne particles and chemicals that your source extractor failed to deal with.

Now when it comes to some rooms like saunas, you cannot exactly use an air purifier as the room is just too humid. However you need to control the humidity in these rooms as if it mixes with chemicals and particles from other parts of your salon, you just worsen your air quality. 

To control humidity, if this applies to your salon, you will have to install a dehumidifier in or near rooms where the humidity in your salon is being generated. Reducing humidity will also help improve the performance of your air purifiers placed in other rooms of your salon as you avoid wearing out your purifiers filtration system with moisture.

Step 3: Clean The Entire Building

Lastly, the final aspect of your salon air purification system is an appliance that works to clean air across your entire salon. Usually, this is an HVAC fitted with a HEPA filter or an HVAC based air purifier. 

For a lot of people, this part of the system will be a challenge to put in place as you might find yourself in a situation whereby you have no HVAC in your salon and it’s just not feasible to do a major renovation to install an air exchange system.

But if you can fit in an HVAC based air cleaner or air exchange system, this is the final line of defense against pollutants in your beauty salon. Once pollutants have been minimized in your breathing-zones and rooms, whatever else is lingering around across your building can then be dealt with by your HVAC air cleaner or an air exchanger. 

Additionally, your entire building appliances help increase airflow in and out of your salon which boosts the rate at which air pollutants pass through your air purifiers and gets you cleaner air faster.

Furthermore, besides your air purifier filters, some of your other salon air purification appliances like your HVAC air cleaner will also have filters such as activated carbon and HEPA filters among others to effectively capture air pollutants in your salon. 

So these are the three major steps you need to take to get the most out of your salon air purifier. This is the ideal system but in many situations, this 3 step system may not be practical. 

It may be a challenge for you to have large specialized salon tables or expensive ducted air extraction and filtration systems installed. 

If this is the case my opinion is to invest in the best possible room air purifier as an alternative. If your salon has multiple rooms, you also want to get an air purifier for each room. 

Once you have air purifiers covering your facility adequately then you can look into getting some stand-alone source capture systems. You wanna get some source extractors mainly for the most air polluting treatments carried out in your salon. 

Additional Equipment To Ensure Good Air Quality In Beauty Salons

Now that you have seen and know of the equipment involved in an ideal salon air purification setup, you might be wondering which brands of this equipment to go for. 

Just to recap the additional equipment as I pointed out earlier includes extractor/source capture ventilators, dehumidifiers, and an HVAC air cleaner. Here are my suggested options for each of these additional appliances.

1. Source Capture Systems

When looking for a good source capture system, based on Safety Guidelines for Controlling and Minimizing Inhalation Exposure to Nail Products published by the Professional Beauty Association (PBA), you should be going for one that draws at least 50 cubic feet of air per minute. 

For this airflow capacity, your source capture system should be at least 6 inches from where your beauty treatments generate vapor, dust, and other salon air pollutants. 

Source capture systems are your first line of defense from air pollutants generated within your breathing zone. Whether it’s air contaminants from hair bleaching or smoothing, nail filing, nail grinding, or lash extensions there is a source capture system for your situation.

You can get stand-alone systems with extraction arms or systems that sit on your table or that are built into your table. Some great salon extractor options I found for the breathing zone area include systems from HealthyAir® Source Capture Systems and VODEX .

HealthyAir does well with arm extension based systems while Vodex also has some great built-in table extractors for nail salons. For nail salons, you can also go for simpler portable table based options like the Markatt Nail Dust collector on Amazon.

Devices from these manufacturers have great filtration systems designed to protect you the salon owner, your employees, and clients against the dangers of inhaling harmful fumes or dust. This is with the exception of portable tabletop nail dust extractors which are designed to only extract dust.

So if you want a source capture system that extracts both particulates, gases, and fumes from your breathing zone, be prepared to invest in something similar to what you would get from VODEX and HealthyAir.

2. HVAC Air Cleaner

If you have an HVAC system in your Salon, getting an air cleaner fitted to it is a no brainer. The HVAC air purifier options range as widely as the room air purifiers do. Generally for salons experts recommend you install an HVAC unit that contains a multi-stage filtration system. 

Usually, such air purifiers contain HEPA and Electronic air filters. I have written extensively about HVAC air purifiers here. They are also commonly referred to as whole-house air purifiers. 

Of the numerous options, for salons, I recommend you look at HEPA + Activated Carbon HVAC air cleaners from Lennox or Aprilaire. They are among the most robust HVAC air cleaners. To properly fit an HVAC air cleaner, it’s best to get a professional to install it for you. They will know exactly what size you need for your type of HVAC whichever brand you go for.

4. Dehumidifier

If you have humidity issues in your beauty salon, you are likely no stranger to the many issues high humidity levels cause. Firstly, for certain beauty treatments, high humidity levels can be a nuisance. One such procedure is eyelash extensions.

When trying to attach eyelash extensions on your clients’ lashes, high humidity can make it take longer for lash glue to adhere and also reduce the time your lash extension will last. This can be bad for business, sending your clients to look for someone who can do it better if it happens often.

Then when it comes to air quality in terms of health, high humidity tends to make everyone in your salon feel uncomfortably sticky and creates a breeding ground for all sorts of airborne and surface contaminants.

These include surface mold and mildew among other bacteria that eventually become airborne and contribute to bad air quality. The situation is even more serious if you have a water lounge, pool, hot tub, or any major water facility.

To solve your humidity issues in a beauty salon setting you need to have a dehumidifier. Thankfully there are many great options out there. Like air purifiers, you have to choose one according to the room size of your salon.

Of the many dehumidifiers, here are two options worth your while. The first option is for you if you do not have serious humidity issues. This is Amazon’s home brand humidifier, the AmazonBasics Dehumidifier. 

It will suck up to 50 pints per day of water from your air in a space of 4000 square feet with a standard ceiling height of 8 feet. This is more than ideal for a small to medium-sized salon. It has a reservoir with a smart overflow protection feature that works to prevent your dehumidifier’s reservoir from overflowing and making a mess.

The AmazonBasics Dehumidifier also has a timer to automatically turn it on and off and an auto-restart feature that enables it to turn itself on after a power outage. It can also sense your humidity levels and automatically turn on and off to maintain your selected humidity level. Through this feature, you also save on energy consumption. 

Option number two is for you if you need dehumidification on a commercial level for your salon. You should certainly consider this option if you have a large water facility like a pool, sauna, or hot tub. The dehumidifier we are looking at here is the AlorAir SGLR 125 PPD Smart WiFi Dehumidifier. 

It can remove 125 pints of water per day from the air in a salon of up to 3000 square feet and can run for days on end without being checked due to its sheer strength. The bummer is that it does not have a reservoir but rather needs a hose connected to a drain to get rid of the water it sucks out of your air.

Though it has numerous smart features, it’s very easy to use. It’s a sturdy device and fit for commercial use. With this dehumidifier, you should be able to get and maintain the right humidity level in a large beauty salon with high humidity levels in less than 48 hours. 

I could get into more details about salon dehumidifiers but with my brief guide here you should be covered in terms of ensuring good humidity levels in your salon. Should you have any questions about any of the additional tools to ensure good quality air in your salon, feel free to ask in the comments.

Expected Challenges When Improving Your Beauty Salon’s Air Quality 

Should you decide to install a fully-fledged salon air purification system, you may face some challenges. The first issue for a lot of people is the financing, especially if your salon does not already have an HVAC system.

You are looking at a few thousand dollars for a comprehensive system. Ways around this are to look for ventilation companies or equipment suppliers that will allow you to pay for your new air purification equipment in installments. Some people also advise increasing the price of your services a little.

You can justify this to your clients by communicating to them that it’s for the good of everyone’s health and that installing good ventilation for clean indoor air keeps you compliant with environmental authorities and allows you to continue providing your services to them peacefully.

The next thing you might face is customers complaining about the noise the new devices make, especially if you run a spa where some people come to relax and get away from the noise. You can usually overcome this problem by playing background music in your salon.

If you have to do some renovation, move things around quite a bit, or close shop to do installations, people may also complain about the inconvenience. However, this is short-lived and such complaints can be acceptably managed by communicating that you are improving the salon for their benefit. 

Next, as I have alluded to earlier, you may also face issues of space. You may just not have enough room to add extra appliances in your salon without it getting overcrowded. If that’s the case, you can look into getting ceiling mounted air purifiers and extractors. This should save you a lot of floor space.

Lastly, like with all other air purifiers, you will need to maintain your salon air purifiers. You have to know how to and when to change your filters and how to keep your air purification equipment clean. 

You can set reminders and maintenance schedules to keep up. Alternatively, you can get an air purifier with an automated filter change indicator. In fact, your entire salon air purification system can consist of smart devices that tell you when and what component you need to change or maintain to keep your system running well.

List Of Companies Providing Beauty Salon Air Quality Solutions 

I have shown you some of the equipment I found to be excellent options for keeping the air in your salon clean. I have also shown you how important it is to make sure you clean the air in your salon. 

The equipment I selected is a collection of air quality equipment that has been proven to get results in salons. That said, there are a lot of other good options beyond my list. 

Accordingly, if you want to do more digging and research beyond what I have shown you, below is a list of salon air quality solution suppliers that I found helpful and I trust you will too.

Salon Air Quality Systems Buyers’ Guide

Supplier Name	Air Quality Solution Provided
Aerovex Systems	Air Purification & Ventilation Products
Air Impurities Removal Systems/Salon Pure Air	Air Purification and Extraction
Aircare Europe Limited	Nail Stations Air Purifier Tables
Alfalfa Nail Supply	Air Purification and Extraction
Americanails	Dust Collectors
Electrocorp Air Filtration Systems	Heavy Duty Air Cleaners
Medicool	Nail Filtration Systems
Kingsom	Hair Salon Extractors
Bench Vent	Ventilation Company

6 Extra Steps To Improve Your Beauty Salon’s Air Quality

Once you have decided on what air quality setup to implement or if you already have a system up and running, the journey to cleaner salon air does not end there. You also need to make sure you have a daily cleaning routine and rules to minimize indoor pollution.

Here are 5 examples of additional measure you should take in addition to air cleaning equipment for better air in your salon:

1. Use Products With The Least Hazardous Chemicals

When choosing chemicals for procedures, where possible go for eco-friendly alternatives. For chemicals that have no eco-friendly alternative, go for options that get the job done with lower toxic emission levels.

2. Close Bottles Tightly

This will be hard to do in the middle of treatments but once you have finished styling or manicuring someone, make sure you close all product lids and bottle tops tightly to avoid spills and extra chemicals unnecessarily escaping into your salon’s air.

3. Do Not Use More Product Than Needed

This is straightforward. The more chemical products you use the more air pollutants from those products are likely to get into your air. So don’t just cut down on the amounts of product you use per treatment just to save money but also do so to minimize daily emissions in your Salon.

4. Wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Another thing you can do to protect yourself, personnel, and clients from pollutants is to wear goggles, masks, aprons, and other protective gear. PPE provides an extra layer of protection to minimize toxic chemicals and pollutant particles in the air of your salon from getting into your eyes, nose, and mouth.

5. Use Tight Lid Trash Cans

Cotton balls, swabs, paper towels used to wipe off the excess product during treatments are another source of salon emissions. If disposed of in uncovered bins whatever chemical they absorbed leaks back into your salon air.

6. Follow Product Disposal Instructions

Lastly, to help manage your pollution levels, you want to make sure that products in your salon are disposed of correctly. Some products and byproducts of beauty salon treatments cannot simply be placed in the trash can within your salon until you take the day’s or week’s trash out. 

Some have to be sealed extremely well, while others may even need specialized waste management services to properly dispose of them. Whatever the case, you minimize indoor air pollution from your salon waste if you follow all the recommended salon products and general waste disposal guidelines.

So these are all the additional steps you need to take to improve your beauty salon’s air quality. Combine these six supplemental measures with a good salon air purification system and you are pretty much set towards getting fresh air in your salon.

As I write this post, to date, the cure for asthma is yet to be found. Nevertheless, with the correct attention, you can manage your symptoms and live a healthy life. In addition to medical treatment, avoiding exposure to allergens in the environment can help you a lot. Accordingly, many people to ask the question,

Can Air Purifiers Help With Asthma? In short, the answer is yes. Air purifiers can help with asthma but not all air purifiers work. Some air purifiers like ionic and ozone air cleaners worsen asthma symptoms. The air purifiers that help include True HEPA and PCO air purifiers and even these have to be supplemented to work well.

There are several air purifiers out there that can help you with asthma. In the rest of this post, I give you the ins and outs of how air purifiers can help you, and which ones you should go for based on your budget. 

Lastly, I detail all the important extra steps you should take to get the best results for your asthma with an air purifier. So, read on if you are serious about getting an air purifier for asthma for yourself or someone dear to you.

Do Air Purifiers Help With Asthma?

To appreciate whether air purifiers can help with asthma or not the first thing you need to know is how asthma works. Thereafter you have to know how air purifiers work. Once you understand the mechanisms behind asthma and air purifiers it becomes absolutely clear whether an air purifier will work or not for asthma.

Let’s start with how asthma works. Simply put, asthma is when the airways that bring air in and out of your lungs become inflamed causing them to be swollen and sensitive. Your airways become inflamed if you inhale certain substances.

As your airways become inflamed the muscles surrounding them get tighter and make your airways narrower. If the inflammation persists eventually your mucus is produced and builds up in your airways adding to further blockages in your airway.

Sometimes the inflammation stops by itself but if it does not, eventually you get an asthma attack and if you do not seek immediate medical attention an attack can prove fatal. 

There are many asthma triggers, including stress, physical activity, a respiratory infection, you name it but among the many triggers airborne substances are a common culprit in asthma flare-ups. Here is a list of airborne asthma triggers:

• Dust
• Pet Dander/Hair
• Smoke
• Mold
• Pollen
• Ozone 
• Insect/ Dust Mite Feces
• Volatile Organic Compounds
• Chemical Fumes

My list here is by no means exhaustive. There are many more contaminants lurking around in your indoor air that can cause asthma flare-ups. This just goes to show a key part of minimizing your asthma issues is limiting how many of these airborne particles and gases your airways are exposed to. 

So logically you have to look for something that blocks these particles from entering your airways or cleans and gets rid of these particles from your air. The solution should be especially implemented in indoor spaces where you spend most of your time.

By far the most useful tool in blocking dangerous air particles from getting into your airways is a mask. You can get all sorts of masks. Particulate masks and gas masks, but who wants to wear a mask all day. 

This is where air purifiers come in handy. There are several different types out there but they are all built to get rid of bad particulates or gases in your air. 

Some air purifiers like ozone generators release chemicals into the air that get rid of airborne asthma triggers through a chemical reaction while others release ions that similarly neutralize airborne asthma triggers.

Then you have some air purifiers that suck the air out of your room and pass it through a series of filters or reaction chambers within their core where all the dangerous air pollutants in your air are trapped or destroyed. 

Then you will also find some air purifiers that combine multiple of these air cleaning approaches in one appliance. All in all, air purifiers in whatever form are made to remove bad substances in your air.

So logically you can conclude that air purifiers can generally help with asthma as they can help reduce and get rid of some of the airborne asthma triggers in your indoor air before they reach your airways. However, the question remains, is this logic proven in reality?

From my research, I found mixed evidence with some scientific studies and air purifier user reviews suggesting no significant improvements and others stating air purifiers are helpful. 

Some asthmatic air purifier users felt that they just had a placebo effect on them. On the other hand, others tried several air purifier models before they found one that works and many others say they can’t live without an air purifier.

As far as scientific studies go, a study on thirty elementary school children  concluded that air purifiers reduced the children’s burden of medication for asthma. In other words, the kids under study were better off with air purifiers in terms of managing their asthma.

Another study on 50 adults  in Japan suffering from asthma found air purifiers had a positive therapeutic effect on the group of adults who were provided with air purifiers.

These are some of the studies proving air purifiers are helpful for asthma and there are several others. However, from my knowledge and experience with air purifiers, not all types of air purifiers will work and even if you have the right air purifier, you have to use it properly for it to work.

You have to leave your air purifier running for 24 hours, position it correctly, make sure it’s the correct size for your room, and maintain it properly among other things if you want it to work for your asthma. 

Furthermore, some types of air purifiers should never be used for asthma sufferers. I talk more about this in the next section. The other thing with air purifiers is that they won’t help you if pollutants are on surfaces such as carpets, sofas, curtains, or your bedding. 

In addition to your air purifier, you still need to keep cleaning your home and put in place other measures to get the most of your air purifier in helping with your asthma. So in conclusion, yes, air purifiers help with asthma, provided you use them correctly and you use the correct type of air purifier.

What’s The Ideal Kind Of Air Purifier For Asthma?

Now that you know air purifiers can work for asthma, your next concern should be about which air purifier you should use. This question can be answered from both an air purifier type perspective and a brand/model point of view. 

Then beyond purifier type and brand, you have to consider factors like your room size, your appliance’s Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR), and your ability to maintain the air purifier from a cost and technical perspective. 

Some air purifiers are simply much easier and less costly to run than others. As I mentioned earlier there are many different types of air purifiers on the market. The common types include HEPA, PCO, Ionic, and Ozone air purifiers.

Worst Types of Air Purifiers For Asthma

For asthma sufferers of the many types of air purifiers, the best types to go for are HEPA and PCO air purifiers while you want to steer clear of ionic and ozone air purifiers. Ionic and Ozone air purifiers both release cleaning agents into the air that can cause asthma flare-ups.

Ionic air purifiers work by releasing ions into the air which react with airborne pollutants and neutralize them, and eventually, the neutralized pollutants settle on surfaces around your home as a thin film of dust that you eventually have to clean up. As an asthma sufferer, the last thing you want around your home is any form of dirt, neutralized or not.

Furthermore, as part of their air-purifying process, ionic air purifiers release small amounts of ozone into your air. This is bad because as much as ozone is a great air cleaning agent it causes irritations in your airways and it can be very problematic for people with lung problems like asthma. 

So for this reason and also due to the filth they leave behind on surfaces, ionic air purifiers are not for you if you are an asthma sufferer. Ozone air purifiers or Ozone generators as their name implies clean your air by fogging your room with Ozone. 

As you have seen for ionic air purifiers, you do not want anything that produces ozone in your home if you have asthma. For that very reason, ozone air purifiers are also out of the question when it comes to selecting an air purifier for asthma.

Best Types of Air Purifiers For Asthma 

HEPA Air Purifiers

From anecdotal evidence and my experience with air purifiers, I have found HEPA air purifiers work the best for asthma sufferers. You can go for a plain HEPA air purifier or one that’s combined with an activated carbon filter or any other air purification technology that does not produce dangerous byproducts like ozone or neutralized pollutants that settle on surfaces around your home.

HEPA air purifiers suck and trap all the bad solid pollutants in your air in their filters. To trap gases and fumes they however need an extra filter called an activated carbon filter. So ideally if you have asthma you should go for an air purifier with a HEPA and activated carbon filter combo. 

That way you get rid of both VOCs, fumes, and stuff like pet hair, dander, and pollen at the same time. The only time I would advise you to go for a pure HEPA air purifier is if gaseous pollutants are not an issue for you and you are only concerned about airborne particulates (i.e. solid airborne pollutants).

An extra filter you can add on as part of a HEPA and activated carbon combo air purifier is a UV filter. The UV filter is great for killing airborne germs, viruses, and bacteria but not so great for particulates and gases in your air. 

The other thing to make sure when you are choosing a HEPA air purifier is that your air purifier is labeled TrueHEPA. The industry is flooded with all kinds of HEPA filter purifiers. Unlike other types of HEPA filter purifiers, TrueHEPA filter purifiers can trap particles down to 0.01 microns. 

This type of air purifier can trap almost all kinds of dangerous airborne particulates. To qualify as a TrueHEPA filter air purifier, an air purifier’s HEPA filter must be able to capture at least 90% of all particles that try to pass through it that are 0.3 microns or larger in diameter.

On the other hand, most of the purifiers that are not labeled TrueHEPA are not designed to filter ultrafine airborne particulates which include things like smoking or traffic pollution particulates which is exactly what you are aiming to remove from your air as an asthma sufferer. In particular, watch out for and stay away from HEPA purifiers labeled HEPA-Type.

PCO Air Purifiers

The other type of air purifier that works for asthma is a PCO (photocatalytic oxidation) air purifier.  This type of air purifier sucks dirty air out of your room, cleans it, and releases it back into your room like a HEPA purifier, however, it has no filters per se.

PCO air purifiers rather have a reaction chamber in their core containing a high spectrum  UV light and titanium dioxide catalyst that causes a reaction that incinerates all kinds of pollutants that pass through the chamber.

PCO air purifiers incinerate air pollutants turning them into water and carbon dioxide. They are effective for asthma and destroy rather than just trap pollutants as HEPA purifiers do. The challenge with PCO air purifiers though is that they are not as widely available and replacement parts can at times be a challenge to find.

What’s more, some PCO air purifiers do produce ozone, so you have to make sure to check whether the one you want to go for does or does not release ozone as a byproduct. 

On the upside, PCO air purifiers will last you much longer than any HEPA purifier before you need to maintain them. Anywhere from 1-3 years depending on your usage while HEPA based purifiers need filter changes every 3 months to a year.

All in all, a good PCO or HEPA air purifier is the correct type of air purifier for an asthma sufferer. The next thing to make sure of is to get the correct size air purifier for your home or whatever space you want to cover. 

Generally, I recommend you go for an air purifier with the ability to cover 200 square feet more than your room size. So if the room you want to clean air in is 800 square feet, then go for an air purifier that can cover at least 100 square feet. 

To add to this, you need an air purifier with an ACH (Air Changes per Hour) rate of at least three. This is the minimum rate required to clean and keep the air clean enough overtime for anyone with respiratory issues including asthma.

Whole House Air Purifiers

One other thing to note is that if you have an HVAC in your home or office, you can install an HVAC or whole-house air purifier to clean the air across your entire building or wherever your HVAC covers. 

The purifying technologies remain the same here. Whole-house air purifiers also come either as HEPA or PCO purifiers but are just modified to fit your HVAC. 

There is a lot more information I could share on ideal types of air purifiers for asthma but let’s leave things here for now. Based on the types I have shown you that will work well for asthma let’s now jump into which air purifier brands/models I found to be worth it for asthma.

5 Air Purifier Models That Work For Asthma

There are numerous HEPA and PCO air purifier brands and models that can help you but I have limited my list to 5 which I have seen have consistently given good results to asthma sufferers. Some devices I suggest have low coverage but are nonetheless quite powerful and the approach is just to get multiple units to properly cover a larger room.

In no particular order, the five air purifiers that I have found have proven effective for asthma  include,

1. Winix HR 900
2. Honeywell HPA300
3. Fellowes  AeraMax
4. IQAir HealthPro Plus
5. Airocide APS-200

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

1. Winix

If you are looking for a lower-cost air purifier that will give you value for your money, the Winix range of air purifiers is an excellent choice. From Winix two models in particular work well for asthma. The Winix 5500 and the Winix HR 900.

The main difference between the two is that the HR 900 is designed for pet owners and has a prefilter to capture a lot of the pet hair and dander which the 5500 does not have. If you have pets, I strongly suggest you go for the Winix HR900.

The downside of the Winix air purifiers is the PlasmaWave feature. This feature produces a little ozone. Some people living with asthma have complained about this but they are the minority. 

Fortunately, you can turn off the PlasmaWave feature and your air purifier will not produce any ozone at all and your air purifier will clean your air just fine. Winix at some point had versions of these purifiers without the Plasmawave feature.

Both the models I have picked out here have True HEPA filters and activated carbon filters and will get rid of fumes, odors, and airborne particles down to 0.3 microns. These air purifiers have got you covered for most airborne asthmagens. 

They both have an ACH rate of 4 which is above the recommended for asthma air purifiers and if you use them well and run them 24/7 you should only need 2 filter changes a year (every 6 to 12 months). What’s more, the filters are reasonably priced. 

I would go for any of the two Winix air purifiers if I had a smaller to medium-sized room. They both cover under 350 square feet of space, so ideally you want to place them in a room that’s under 200 square feet for optimal performance. The  Winix HR 900 and Winix 5500  are easy to get from Amazon.

2. Honeywell

Another great mid-price range air purifier for asthma is the Honeywell HPA300. It has an activated carbon and TrueHEPA filter and does everything the Winix range of purifiers do but covers a larger room area. Honeywell recommends it for rooms of up to 465 square feet 

That’s quite a large room in a home and they say it will give you an ACH rate of 5, which is perfect for asthma. For better performance though, better to get the HPA300 for rooms of up to 300 square feet. The HPA will also filter particulates sizes down to 0.3 microns.

This air purifier has gotten a lot of good press from asthma sufferers with pets and in areas with wildfires. It’s budget-friendly when it comes to maintenance with filter changes costing you less than $200 per year. But this depends on your usage level. 

Your pre-filters are expected to last 3 months, while your other filters anywhere from 8 to 12 months, though for some people they last a little longer. On the downside, the main complaint I have seen about this unit is a bad plasticky odor.

The main reasons for this are people trying to operate it without taking off all the plastic wrapping the appliance comes in or because the appliance the user received was faulty. If you find yourself in this situation, do not worry though. 

You can return your purifier for a refund or ask for a replacement. Just be sure to test the device and return it within the stipulated warranty and refund time should you face any problems. 

Besides this issue, I have found the Honeywell purifier to be a great choice for asthma sufferers. You can check it out on Amazon here and if you decide to get one off Amazon from outside the U.S, make sure you get one with the correct voltage specifications for your country.

3. Fellowes

For a mid to high price range air purifier, the Fellowes AeraMax 290 or 300 Large Room Air Purifier is a great option. The only difference I find between these two models is the color but their prices differ and fluctuate so often between $250 to $300. 

These purifiers do have a plasma ionizer feature that produces trace amounts of ozone but the feature can be turned off as and when. The other major complaint I have seen with this range of air purifiers is that their indicator lights shine too bright when you switch off all your bedroom lights to go to bed. People have solved this by putting some duct tape over their air purifier’s lights. 

On the positive, the AeraMax 290 and 300 purifiers both cover rooms of up to 600 square feet. They are suitable for pretty much any room in most homes. Ideally you should get these air purifiers for room sizes of up to 500 square feet. 

The ACH rate for these air purifiers range from 3 to 5 depending on room size. For room sizes of 600 square feet, their ACH will drop down to 3. This is all still in a good range for asthma sufferers. The added advantage of either the 290 or 300 model is that they have smart features.

Firstly, they can automatically adjust their speed based on the pollution level in your room. They also have sensors that can detect the level of pollution and if your pollution is high, their sensor enables them to increase the speed at which  they clean your air to ensure you always have a constant level of good air quality. 

These air purifiers will maintain your air at optimal quality without you having to continuously adjust them manually. Additionally, they have internal sensors that work to tell you when you need to change your filters. 

Typically, for your activated carbon filters, you need to change these quarterly and your True HEPA filters need to be changed annually. Compared to other air purifiers the Aeramax filters are well priced not costing more than $40 each. You can learn more about the AeraMax 290 and 300 here on Amazon.

4.  IQAir

On the higher price end, you have several options. I point anyone with asthma who is looking for the ultimate HEPA air purifier to the IQAir HealthPro Plus Air Purifier. It is an expensive machine but you get what you pay for.

It’s the only household activated carbon HEPA air purifier I have seen that can filter particles down to 0.003 microns, 100 times smaller than the common TrueHEPA air purifiers. That’s smaller than the finest airborne asthmagen and allergen particles. You can rest assured if you use this air purifier correctly your results are guaranteed.

Its carbon filter is additionally designed to capture and destroy harmful VOCs like formaldehyde which most activated carbon air purifiers fail to do. Where the IQAir fails though is on smart features. 

For its price, I would expect it to come with a filter change indicator and automated speed adjustment or the ability to connect it to Wi-Fi and Alexa but it falls short on such smart features. Another thing is once its carbon filter is due for replacement it produces a sweet smell that can aggravate some people’s asthma.

The only way to avoid that problem is to change your filters as instructed by the manufacturer in their manual. They are well aware of the smell issue and the address is in their manual.

The IQAir HealthPro Plus purifier has an ACH level of 3 to 4 in a room size of up to 1125 square feet. So place it in a room of up to 800 square feet in size. The other good thing about it is that its filters last between 18 to 24 months, which is amazing for activated carbon and HEPA filters. Most barely clock a year. 

Go for this air purifier if you are looking for the best air quality you can get from a HEPA air purifier and you don’t care about smart features. You can check out the IQAir HealthPro Plus here on Amazon.

5. Airocide 

Airocide air purifiers are among the few PCO based air purifiers I can vouch for asthma sufferers largely because they are the most readily available ozone free PCO air purifier. For asthma, you should particularly go for the Airocide APS-200.

The APS-200 is a very good choice because it also has a MERV-12 filter (similar to a HEPA filter), and an activated carbon filter beyond the PCO reaction chamber. This air purifier is ideal for rooms of up to 600 square feet.

Its MERV and activated carbon filters will last up to 12 months and your PCO reaction chamber lasts much longer for up to 2 years. It eradicates asthma triggering VOC gases, viruses, and particulates down to 0.001 microns.

It is not your conventional air purifier and you need patience,  a whole week before you start to see proper results. Also, you have to run this purifier 24/7. Thankfully it’s energy-efficient and it’s low on power consumption.

The other thing with this air purifier like most PCO air purifiers, you will struggle to get filter and reaction chamber replacement parts. Ideally, you should buy 2 cycles worth of spare filters as you buy the APS 200 and this should allow you to use your purifier for at least 4 years.

Go for the Airocide APS-200 if you want to get rid of air pollutants beyond what HEPA air purifiers can manage. HEPA air purifiers go as low as 0.003 microns while the Airocide air purifier goes down to 0.001 microns. It’s worth a try if you find HEPA air purifiers are just not cutting it for you, otherwise, for asthma, a good HEPA air purifier should work just fine. 

So these are the five air purifiers that I have found from my research that get you great results when it comes to dealing with asthma triggers in your air. There are many more great examples, from Blue Air, Rabbit Air, Air Oasis, EnviroKlenz etc.

That said, the five I have pointed out to you here should serve you well. One thing you should keep in mind though is that you obviously cannot solely rely on air purifiers alone to deal with your asthma. 

Accordingly, next, I describe additional steps you should take to get the most out of your air purifier when using it to help you with your asthma.

8 Additional Measures You Can Use With Air Purifiers To Help Your Asthma

The thing with air purifiers is that they will not get rid of any asthma triggers that are on surfaces around your home. So cleaning is key in addition to using an air purifier. On top of that, you have to do what your doctor says and take all your meds.

Beyond cleaning your home, you have to look into using more eco-friendly household products and if you have pets, making sure you maintain their hygiene well and that they follow certain rules to minimize your contact with their dander, fur, or hair.

There are a lot of things you can do and you can get away without doing every single thing, but you can only make things better by correctly implementing as many of these measures as you can in addition to running your air purifier. Here is my summary of the measures,

1. Keep Your Home Clean

Before you start cleaning, the first thing you need to do is make sure you or anyone with asthma in your home wears a mask. This prevents all the particles you release into your air by cleaning from getting into your airways and potentially triggering your asthma.

Unfortunately, with asthma, you cannot afford to slack on cleaning. You have to clean regularly especially in the damp corners of your home. Keeping damp areas of your home clean goes a long way in preventing asthma triggering mold from growing there.

Besides moping and wiping, the other part of keeping your home clean is minimizing how much filth gets into your home. With asthma, part of the game is keeping windows closed, especially in pollen season. 

If you have air conditioning this is easy to achieve. However, if you are energy conscious or for whatever reason you feel the need to have your windows open, you can get a window air filter. This keeps out all the pollen while letting clean outdoor air into your home.

That said, sometimes the airborne triggers are actually in your home, and if that’s the case you have to open your windows to let them out. If that’s the case during pollen season, keep an eye on your local weather report to get an idea of when pollen levels are lowest and plan to open your windows at that time.

You also want to get rid of anything you do not need that collects dust and allergens. Things like fake plants, Old books, decorative bedside items. 

It’s either you wipe them down often or just auction them on eBay or give them away. Also, watch out for house plants. They collect dust too and can attract all kinds of creatures into your home that will just make things worse. 

It’s easier to just leave plants outside if you have asthma. The story is the same with pets. If you cannot keep your pets outside, at least keep them off your sofas and rugs and definitely outside your bedroom.

With asthma, you also want to minimize the presence of smoke. Cut out wood-burning, incense, candles, incense, and smoking and use of tobacco products in your home and any other indoor smoke-producing activity.

Keeping your home clean also means avoiding storage of off-gassing things in your home. Don’t store paints or chemicals indoors. We store a lot of chemicals in the house without even noticing. 

The bulk of these are detergents and other cleaning chemicals. A better place to put these is in the basement or garage. If you don’t have the option of putting these chemicals in an outside room somewhere the next best thing is to store them in an airtight container that prevents them from off-gassing into your home.

Other things you need to watch out for when keeping your home clean include any mold and pests like rats, mice, and cockroaches. If you have any minor signs of an infestation, better to call a professional to deal with it. You pretty much have to be borderline OCD and a minimalist when it comes to keeping your house clean to avoid asthma triggers.

2. Vacuum You Floors And Everything That Can Be Vacuumed

I could have put vacuuming as part of keeping your house clean but this step deserves its own section. We bring all sorts of nasty particles into our home through our shoes and clothing that can worsen your asthma.

Therefore, you will do more good than harm for yourself if you vacuum your home regularly to get rid of all the contaminants on surfaces around your home before they become airborne. Try vacuuming at least every 2 days for your floors and every week for upholstery and drapes.

When you vacuum, use a high-quality vacuum to avoid putting dust back in the air. As for air purifiers, the ideal type of vacuum you should go for should have a TrueHEPA filter to trap the smallest of surface pollutants and asthmagens. 

If you are not one to vacuum on the regular, fortunately, there is an alternative for you. You should definitely look into robot vacuum cleaners. These vacuums are automated and with dirt detecting sensors keep your floor clean 24/7.

Some of these robot vacuums can even mop your floor and come with a docking station where they can recharge themselves and safely dump all the filth they have collected around your home for you to dispose of late.

The only thing they can’t do yet is climb stairs, so if you have a multi-story home, you would have to place one on each floor or carry one between floors. If you opt to get one and move it between floors, it can get annoying fast as you add more things to do to your daily routine instead of reducing your chores which is the idea behind a robot vacuum.

My take on robot vacuums is that it’s something every home with asthma sufferers should have. Get one if you can and you will thank me later.

It will really save you a lot of time in minimizing contaminants on your floor and also make your air purifier’s job much easier. Two great robot vacuums you should check out on Amazon are the Roborock S6 MaxV and the iRobot Roomba s9+ (9550).

3. Go Green and Hypoallergenic

If you have an asthma sufferer in your home, you should avoid wall-to-wall carpets. Carpets house and become a massive source of allergens, which you cannot easily get rid of by vacuuming or using an air purifier. You could go for a hypoallergenic carpet but you’re better off using hypoallergenic rugs.

Going hypoallergenic applies to all fabrics in your home, upholstery, curtains, beddings, pillows, mattresses and you can even get hypoallergenic apparel and facemasks. All hypoallergenic means here is that all sorts of allergens cannot adhere to your fabric.

So if you have hypoallergenic bedsheets, their surface does not allow for allergens like dust or allergen producing creatures like dust mites to lodge themselves and accumulate in the material. 

With stuff made of hypoallergenic material, you contribute significantly to cutting allergens and airborne contaminants in your home. You can learn more about hypoallergenic bedding here. 

If you go hypoallergenic, going green is a no brainer. This means avoiding corrosive and household chemicals and detergents like bleach and going for eco-friendly alternatives like the ones I have listed here.

You can also get eco-friendly paints for your wall that don’t off-gas any VOCs which can mess with your asthma. These days you also get green furniture. I won’t get into details here but if you need more information Corrine from My Chemical Free House provides a detailed guide on non-toxic furniture here.

4. Do Your Laundry Regularly And With Hot Water

Besides using eco-friendly detergents, doing your laundry regularly decreases the volume of pollutants lying around in your home that you may have picked up through your clothing as you were out and about. 

It’s recommended that you wash your bedding, clothes, stuffed animals, and any other fabrics with water that’s over 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius). This will ensure you kill most of the contaminants on your apparel. 

5. Groom Your Pets

For pet owners, grooming your pets is a must. You have to be careful here though cause if you bathe some animals too often, it can actually be bad for their skin. However, with the correct pet grooming routine, you can reduce the amount of dander your pets release with obvious benefits for your asthma.

I mentioned earlier, you should also avoid having your pets in certain areas of your home, especially where you sleep. Additionally, it’s a good idea to shower or change clothes after playing with your pets. You have to use your judgment here and at the very least wash your hands.

6. Maintain Your HVAC

As for homeowners with HVACS, your heating and cooling systems use air filters to trap dust, dirt, and hair and stop them from damaging the system. These can however start escaping into your home’s air if your HVAC filter is saturated.

Therefore, you need to make sure you change your filters on time to avoid the resulting pollutants getting into your air and aggravating your asthma. Normally you should change your HVAC filters every 3 months, however, if you have severe asthma you may find it more helpful to replace them every month.

7. Control Your Moisture  Level

There is a lot of mixed anecdotal evidence about humidity and asthma. Some people say humid air really helps soothe their asthma while others don’t agree. Whatever the case, you can actually control your humidity level by using either a dehumidifier or humidifier.

If your humidity is too high, you can lower it by running a dehumidifier and if your air is too dry you can moisturize it by using a humidifier. The generally recommended humidity level and level most people find comfortable is between 30% and 50%.

You should be ok if you keep your humidity level in that range. If your humidity is higher than that range for a while, you will find mold starting to develop in your home which is not good for your air quality and asthma.

Should your humidity drop below 30, then the air becomes too dry and this can be really irritating for your airways and could potentially trigger your asthma. The other thing to be careful with when using a dehumidifier is to avoid getting your air too wet and putting your humidifier too close to your air purifier as you can end up wetting your air purifier filters.

Once your air purifier’s HEPA filter gets wet, they are pretty much useless and you have to get new ones. Keeping a good humidity level also prevents dust mite from breeding which is excellent in the case of asthma sufferers. 

To ensure your humidity level is always within a good range, it’s wise to have a good hygrometer on hand. Hygrometers give you accurate readings of your humidity level.

8. Build A Clean Air Shelter

A final thing I thought was a brilliant idea in an asthma sufferer’s arsenal is a clean air shelter. This is a designated room in your home where you can escape to for a stress-free environment full of fresh air.

The room will obviously contain an air purifier to make sure your air is always clean in there. Ideally, it should also have an air conditioner which you run on recirculate to avoid bringing contaminated air from outside into your shelter.

You also do not want any off-gassing things (paint, furniture, carpets, etc) or pets in your shelter. Keep them far away. It should be the room in your home with limited doorways and windows where you can really control what goes in and out.

Beyond all the air cleaning stuff, as asthma can be stress-triggered in some cases, you also want to include things that relax your mind in your shelter. 

You should throw in some good music, a bar fridge with comfort food and beverages, a nice painting, and calming wall color. I would also add something like the Muse Meditation HeadBand in there to help me de-stress.

Conclusion

All in all, combining the 8 additional measures I have given you with your air purifier will really go a long way in providing you with relief for your asthma symptoms. Another thing I can add is to focus your efforts on ensuring the best quality air in your bedroom.

Research and people’s experiences show asthma symptoms tend to flare up in the early mornings or evenings whereby asthma attacks commonly interrupt sleep. So you will be way ahead of the illness by prioritizing the bedroom. 

Once you have bedrooms covered then you can take action for the rest of the home. Also, remember to ensure you are getting medical attention to your condition. Everything I have shared here in no way replaces your doctor’s recommendations. 

Take the steps I have shared in this post and you should get the most out of an air purifier as part of your asthma management program.

Preparing a safe room for your baby can be quite a challenging task. The things you would normally ignore on any given day suddenly become lethal objects and plants are no exception. Accordingly, if you are looking for an air purifying plant for your baby’s room, you have to be super careful what plant you choose.

Moreover, besides the threats you risk exposing your child to by choosing the wrong plant, choosing the right air purifying plant is also a decorative decision. If you choose something randomly, you could end up with an eyesore in your baby’s nursery. 

I found that  in choosing an air purifying plant for a baby’s room, you have to go for three things. Firstly you have to get a plant that’s visually appealing and stimulating, then secondly make sure the plant is harmless and finally, you have to go for a plant that actually does a good job keeping your air clean.

Considering these three factors, finding a good air purifying plant for a baby’s nursery can be daunting for many of us. Accordingly, in this post I have put together some essential information to help you easily jump over this hurdle and choose an ideal plant for your child’s room. 

However, before I show you the various baby room worthy air purifying plants, I thought it would be useful to start by showing you how vital it is to have clean air in your baby’s room. 

Once you have the details on why its important that your baby’s room has good quality air, then we can go through the various suitable air cleaning plants and some tips to make the best use of them.

Thereafter, if you want to dig deeper into this whole air cleaning plant story and learn whether air cleaning plants are worth it in your baby’s room, I finally take an in depth look at whether plants are an adequate solution for clean air or not in your baby’s room. 

Why Is Clean Air  Crucial In Your Baby’s Room?

Having clean air in your baby’s room is one of the best investments you can make for your child. A lot of people just don’t realize how damaging poor air quality can be to your child’s development.

What makes things worse with babies is that as their body’s are still developing they breathe, drink and eat more in proportion to their body size than we do as adults.  As a result with every breath they take a greater proportion of their body is far more exposed to toxic and damaging air pollutants in a shorter space of time.  

If your child is continuously exposed to indoor pollutants like Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), pesticides, chemicals from cleaning products, smoke, carbon monoxide, allergens, etc.,  during their early development stages, they could end up having a host of dangerous life long health problems.

Poor air quality in your baby’s room could see your child suffering from things like asthma, lead poisoning, cancer, and allergies. This is where taking initiatives like using plants to improve air quality in spaces where the baby spends the most time becomes crucial. 

One documentary really touched me and hit home on this topic and has left me a lot more sensitive to the issue of air quality around babies and I strongly suggest everyone with a baby or considering having one should watch it. 

This video follows a family with a baby battling with air pollution in Mongolia. I just can’t explain things any better about making sure your baby’s air quality is as good as possible. 

WATCH THIS VIDEO GUYS.

If you ever find your child unexplainably crying and can’t figure out why, one of the things you should try to check and adjust is your air quality.  When your baby’s air quality is bad, you can tell quite immediately by the unusual discomfort they loudly express. However, sometimes they suffer silently.

If you find you indeed have an air quality issue, plants are one thing you could use in efforts to improve your baby’s air quality and what better place to put them than in your baby’s room where the child spends the greater part of their early years.

With air cleaning plants in your baby’s nursery, if you had poor air quality, in conjunction with other air cleaning measures, you could potentially help swing the needle in the positive direction for your child’s future health and wellbeing. Accordingly, let’s now look into the plants that can help you clean air in your baby’s room.

7 Good Plants For Cleaner Air In Your Baby’s Nursery

With your baby in the room, you have to be very cautious  which plant you choose to put in your child’s nursery. There are many air purifying plants but unfortunately most of them are toxic if not handled with care.

Ironically, some of the plants considered as air cleaning plants even cause contact and airborne allergies for some people. So you really have to tread carefully about which plant you choose for a baby’s nursery. 

Fortunately, I have looked through all the common plants known to have high transpiration rates and that are recommended for improving indoor air quality and I managed to pick out all the safe one’s for a baby’s room. 

The plants I have picked out are non-toxic and are not known to cause any allergies. That said when you are getting an air-purifying plant, do as best as you can to get a female plant. 

You want a female plant because male plants produce pollen. Some pollen is harmless but most can trigger allergic reactions in some people. To be absolutely safe you would rather not have any pollen-producing male plant in your nursery.  

If your room does not get a lot of sunlight, you also need to go for plants that tolerate low light. Additionally your life is much easier if the plant you select does not need frequent watering as you can neglect it for some time without the plant suffering. 

Accordingly, my selection of plants consists of largely low maintenance air purifying plants.

Taking all these factors into consideration, with the need to make your nursery as safe and child-friendly an environment a possible, here are the 7 air purifying plants I believe are ideal in helping maintain good air quality in your baby’s room. 

1. Areca palm

Areca palm, is one of the most suitable indoor palm trees. The plant is big but sturdy and so won’t easily fall over. The Areca Palm is also very good at withstanding damage and it’s easy to maintain in low light conditions and with occasional watering. 

It is non-toxic to both humans and pets.  This palm will apparently absorb airborne pollutants like xylene, acetone, and toluene which off-gas from various household furniture and products.

2. Kentia Palm

Another great  and safe air-purifying palm is the Kentia Palm. The palm is known for its elegant appearance and its a top choice if you are going for a trendy look in a baby’s room. The Kentia is also low-maintenance and is the right plant for you if you struggle to take care of houseplants.

If you take extremely good care of it and place it in a bigger flower pot, the kentia can grow up to 3 meters (9 ft.) tall. It loves humidity but you can get away with watering it occasionally. 

It will do just fine in low-light but give it extra light and it will grow a lot more leaves. Water the kentia once a week, making sure to let the soil dry between watering’s. If you are over watering the plant, its leaves will start to turn yellow. 

Don’t allow it to sit in water. You accordingly need to get a flower pot with good drainage and a fast-draining, well-aerated potting mix. On the flip side, if the plant is not being watered enough, the leaves will start to turn brown. 

You should mist Kentia Palm occasionally and stick to your weekly watering schedule to keep the plant healthy. If you are forgetful about watering, another solution is to get a self-watering flower pot.

The Kentia is known to release ample moisture into the air which is great for good humidity in a baby’s room but if you live in a humid area it may be too much. The palm also removes various chemical toxins lingering in your air.

3. Prayer Plant

The prayer plant got its name because of how its leaves fold up at night like hands in a prayer gesture. During the day, the leaves open up and display an awesome pattern. 

This plant is really a wonder to look at and will make a great addition in almost any baby’s room. It is however on the harder side to care for when it comes to plant care. 

You have to keep its soil moist but not soggy. It also needs its monthly fertilizer all year round except in winter where it goes dormant. 

The Prayer Plant loves the sun and moisture. It is claimed that besides removing various airborne toxins the plant helps improve sleep, breathing and mental clarity. 

In addition to helping keep toxins out of the air, the Prayer Plant has also been found to have anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.

4.  Cast Iron Plant

Another excellent choice, for your baby’s room from a maintenance and safety perspective, is the Cast Iron Plant. This plant is popular in the Japanese flower arrangement art “Ikebana”.

It’s a sturdy plant and though it grows slowly, it grows well in low light conditions and can deal with erratic watering.  The Cast Iron Plant can amazingly last you over 25 years if well cared for. I personally find it very aesthetically pleasing with its rich large green leaves.

In addition to its air-purifying qualities, the plant has been widely used for medicinal purposes in traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine.

It apparently has diuretic properties and certain concoctions of the plant are known to improve blood pressure, treat diarrhea, abdominal pain, traumatic injuries, and even urinary stones.

5. Maidenhair Fern

The Maidenhair fern is not ideal if you are too busy to care for a plant but I have included it here because it’s among the few visually appealing air purifying plants that’s also safe to have around baby’s. It’s not toxic to humans or animals and it does not cause allergies. 

I think this petite plant is a really pretty air purifying addition to any baby’s room. The Maidenhair loves moisture in the air, and gently moist soil. Its leaves are delicate and long.

They are actually quite fragile and if tampered with will turn brown.  If this happens to you though, do not worry as new leaves will grow in place of the brown leaves. Just  make sure to carefully trim the brown leaves off.

The plant needs liquid fertilizer once a month in summer and spring. If you care for it well, it will reward you with its arching and stunning presentation of light petal like leaves hanging from dark branches. 

It will really keep you company in baby’s room if you take good care of it. The plant is not too difficult to be cared for but it needs daily attention. 

I think it is fitting for parents who spend a lot of time in their baby’s room and need a calming activity to do (i.e. caring for a fragile plant) while watching the child. The Maidenhair does not only boast air purifying properties but has also been widely used as a traditional medicine. 

The Navajo Native American people smoked it to treat mental illness, while other ancient tribes have used it as a lotion for insect stings. Some infusions of this fern have also been used for rheumatism.

I recommend this plant to you if you have the time to care for it. Yes it likes to be pampered but once you place it in your child’s room, in addition to its air cleaning ability, the look and feel you get from the Maidenhair Fern is well worth the effort.

6. Peacock Plant

The Peacock Plant is kind of in the same family as the prayer plant but it does not fold up in prayer. I personally feel it’s the prayer plant’s prettier cousin and got its name exactly for that. Its leaves just look so exotic and have such a striking variegation. 

It is a colorful non-toxic, safe and ideal plant for purifying the air in your baby’s nursery.  It is not difficult to care for.  You just have to keep its soil moist and ensure you provide it with some humidity. 

The Peacock Plant is very good at converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. It has a reasonably high transpiration rate making it a powerful candidate for helping you deal with airborne toxins in your child’s room. 

7. Baby Rubber Plant

The Baby Rubber plant is a well known ornamental plant. I really love its glossy, flesh, succulent looking leaves. It needs a room with humidity and light but that said its not a fussy plant and it is easy enough to grow with little attention.  

It does not need that much watering. Water this plant when the top soil in your pot gets visibly dry. Make sure not to over water the plant. 

The plant particularly helps reduce benzene and nitrogen dioxide levels in your air and helps  keep your environment cooler. 

Its leaves are also good at trapping airborne dust and once in a while you will need to wipe the dust on the leaves off as you notice the dust building up. The plant will also contribute towards adding humidity in your child’s room

So these are the 7 plants I highly recommend to try in a baby’s nursery and  here is the list in summary:

1. The Areca Palm
2. The Kentia Palm
3. Prayer Plant
4. Cast iron Plant
5. Maidenhair Fern
6. Peacock Plant
7. Baby Rubber Plant

There are many places where you can buy these plants online. If you are in the US or the UK I have listed some places where you can get the 7 plants in the table below.

Best Place To Get Houseplants Online
Country		Online Houseplant Store
United States		Plantz Bloomscape Nature Hills The Sill
United Kingdom		Crocus The Nun Gardener

5 Dangerous Plants You Should Avoid In Your Baby’s Room

As I mentioned earlier, not all air purifying plants are suitable for your baby’s room and I am shocked to see some of the bad plants being widely recommended to parents on some websites. The thing you have to keep in mind with houseplants in your baby’s room is that eventually your newborn becomes a curious toddler who will touch and chew on stuff. 

So, in addition to plants that can spread pollen, you do not want to get anything that can cause contact allergies or anything toxic or poisonous to humans if ingested. 

Common air purifying house plants I have seen recommended but should not be for a home with a baby or children include the English Ivy, any Dieffenbachia, the Syngonium, Pothos, Philodendron, the Peace lily and some certain ferns. 

These either easily attract bugs and mites, disperse furry like spores in the air that can cause allergies and also pollen. Some of these plants on the other hand are just toxic and dangerous only if tampered with but if you don’t want to take any chances, they are best avoided. 

There are many others on the list and I cannot cover everything here. That said, if you are unsure about any plant it’s a good idea to ask a trusted plant grower or medical source for advice on its safety. 

Based on my knowledge, I particularly tell people to stay away from the following five plants when it comes to a good air purifying plants to place anywhere around your baby’s environment,

1.     Philodendron
2.     Peace Lily
3.     Weeping Fig
4.     Bonsai
5.     Fern

1. Philodendron

From research I found that you want to stay away from any Philodendrons. They are quite common and if somehow they find their way to your child or even your pets mouth, they will trigger a burning sensation and swelling of the tongue, throat, and lips. If ingested these plants can also cause diarrhea and vomiting. They are not a good idea in your baby’s room especially when they are able to grab things.

2. Peace Lily

The Peace Lily does make a fantastic indoor air purifying plant as it’s quite pretty but unfortunately just like philodendrons, they are toxic. They result in the same burning and swelling reaction as the philodendron if ingested.

3. Weeping Fig

The Weeping Fig is another beauty for the home but unfortunately it can be a source of allergies through the dust mites and pests it attracts. Furthermore, the plant’s trunk, leaves and sap can, for some people, trigger allergic reactions very similar to latex allergies. All in all, it’s best to avoid this plant altogether.

4. Bonsai

Oh how I wish Bonsai’s were not on this list. Unfortunately they also are. If your baby is allergic to birch, certain types of Bonsai are not a good idea.  If their particles somehow get into the air through pruning or something or if you touch the plant and then touch your child, your baby could get skin irritation if they are sensitive to birch.  So my take is to avoid any type of Bonsai altogether until you are sure your child does not have a birch allergy.

5. Fern

Not all Ferns are bad and I can attest to the safety of the Maidenhair Fern I recommended earlier. However more likely than not if you are getting a fern it’s likely to be one of those that releases spores that can trigger asthma attacks and other skin irritations.  In particular keep ferns like the common Boston Fern away from your baby’s nursery. 

Safety Precautions & Tips To Best Use Plants In Baby’s Room

If you have read this far, you are no stranger to the potential dangers plants can cause to your child. I think by now you also understand that plants do need some TLC to do their air purifying job well.  Accordingly, here are some quick general tips on safety and maintenance when you put air cleaning plants in your baby’s room. 

I think when it comes to safety, the first thing you have to do is have your local Poison Control Institution’s number on hand in case of any emergency. Have this on hand even if you only have baby safe plants around your home.

Next, when positioning plants in your baby’s room, place them somewhere away from the child’s crib and out of reach of your baby if your child has started crawling or has become a toddler. 

Your child will spend time unsupervised in their room so toxic plants, especially if you can’t place them out of reach are a complete faux pas.

When it comes to plants, these are living and breathing organisms and even with the plants I have recommended here, do your research before settling on what to get and place in your child’s room. 

Next, and probably in line with keeping plants out of reach, do not clutter your room with plants. Even if you can take care of all these plants without any hustle, for obvious reasons, you do not want to create a jungle in your baby’s room. 

Try filling your room with plants and you are bound to attract other creatures into your baby’s room and these can do more harm than good to your child. Be minimal with plants in a child’s room and you save yourself a lot of headaches in terms of tidiness and air quality.

Lastly with plant care, go for organic fertilizers and soils to avoid introducing more harmful chemicals into your home. I also highly recommend self watering flower pots/planters. These can really save you time watering your plants. 

Basically self watering pots have a container compartment which you fill up with water and the water drips slowly into your pot watering your plant over periods of up to a month. Less work on your hands.

You can also go the extra mile with soil-free planting. This is better known as hydroculture and entails  growing your plant in water while using pebbles instead of soil as the media to hold your plant upright. 

The advantage of this approach is you reduce bacteria and mold spores that result from over watering your plant when using soil as your growing media. Just make sure to cover your pot in a way that a toddler cannot get access to the pebbles.  The video below shows a great example of an off the shelf hydroculture planter.

Should You Really Use Plants To Purify Air In Baby’s Room?

Ok, yes, I know, you must be wondering why is this guy now asking this question after extensively going through some plants that can help purify the air a baby’s. 

Well, when I was doing the research on all this, I stumbled on some articles and blog posts that were completely against the ability and idea of plants purifying air that made me question all these posts flooding the internet about air purifying plants. 

Reading through all the articles questioning the science, I thought I would be doing you, “my valued readers”, a disservice not telling you that there are a lot of question marks regarding plants and purifying the air. 

This is info you need to know before going out and getting a plant you believe will clean the air for your baby. There are pages and pages of information on whether plants can actually purify air in a home but let me summarize what I believe is true after digging through some of the research.

Based on scientific research, yes it’s true that plants can actually get rid of some airborne pollutants through a process called phytoremediation. However their ability to do this in the context of a home is limited.

Most of the research done to test the ability of plants to get rid of pollutants in the air was done with a few plants enclosed in a small chamber. If you replicate that to the reality of your living space, for you to get the same air purifying result you would basically need to fill up your whole room with plants.

Filling a room with plants is just not practical in the context of a home let alone a baby’s room. What’s more Bill Wolverton, the former NASA research scientist who caused the current hype around air purifying plants has also in some interviews doubted the practicality of air purifying plants  cleaning the air effectively in a home or office setting. 

His doubts come even after he wrote a number of books about air purifying plants.

So my conclusion from the science is that plants are not the crazed natural indoor air purifiers many websites, even respected websites are making them out to be. So should you even put them in your baby’s room?

My answer is YES. Even though on their own they will barely make a dent in your room’s air quality, for me,  just the fact they are able to sway things a little in the right direction is enough justification to get an air purifying plant in my baby’s room. 

However, I would not solely rely on plants for clean air in my child’s room. You have to use them with other more aggressive measures if you are serious about getting clean air in your baby’s room and I discuss these measures in the next section.

9 Additional Measures For Clean Air In Baby’s Room

Bad air quality comes from many sources in the home. Polluted air can enter your home from outside, it can off-gas from paint on your walls, from chemicals used to clean, from furniture, carpets, cooking and waste in the kitchen, from your bathroom, clothes, beddings and the list is endless.

So how do we take all these sources on? The truth is you can’t but with certain steps you can greatly minimize the level of air pollutants that remain from all these sources in your home’s air and more importantly in your baby’s nursery. Accordingly, here are 9 steps you can take for clean air in Baby’s room in addition to using air purifying plants.

1. Invest In An Air Purifier

Air purifiers are at the center of my arsenal in improving indoor air quality. This is my number one solution and if I had to choose between air purifying plants and an air purifier, an air purifier would win by a landslide. 

Nonetheless, you can use both. Plus plants have the advantage of adding that extra feel of calm and serenity in a room. To learn more about air purifiers, just explore the purify your air category of my website. Alternatively you can jump straight to the air purifiers I recommend and you will find an ideal one for your baby’s room.

2. Get An Air Exchanger

Installing an air exchanger and running it in your home will remove polluted and stale air from your home and dump it outside while replacing it with fresh air from outdoors. Generally, if you have a properly installed air exchanger system it will renew the air in all the important parts of your home. If you can get one, run it alongside your air purifier.

3. Open Windows Occasionally

If you live in an area with generally clean outdoor air, opening the windows in your home from time to time to let the air in can do wonders in improving your air quality. Most of the time you will find the air quality in your house is worse than outdoors, especially if you have a tightly insulated and sealed home and you barely let any air flow in and out.

4. Clean With Eco-Friendly Detergents

Your standard Unilever or Procter and Gamble cleaning and washing detergents contain a lot of harmful chemicals that can off gas into your indoor air and some people are actually quite sensitive to these on contact. 

Fortunately there are a number of environmentally friendly alternatives to your standard grocery store detergents. Look to more eco-friendly detergents for cleaning floors and surfaces in your home and child’s room and do the same for your laundry. 

5. Minimize Usage of Scented Products

Perfumes, air freshener, hair sprays and most toiletries contribute to indoor air pollution. For better air quality around your entire home while you have a baby, you should  especially cut down on using sprays and look for eco-friendly baby and adult toiletries.

6. Keep Indoor Humidity Levels Optimal

There are many ways you can control your humidity. Some plants are quite helpful in increasing humidity if your humidity is too low. But generally you will need a dehumidifier if your humidity is too high or a humidifier if it’s too low. You need to maintain your humidity  level in the range of 35-60%. To make sure you share in range, you can check your humidity level using a hygrometer.

7. Minimize Off Gassing Items In Baby’s Room

To minimize off-gassing in your child’s room, try as much as possible to go for GREENGUARD certified or similarly certified furniture and items in your kid’s room. These do not emit VOCs that make the air in your child’s room worse. These days you can find a GREENGUARD versions of almost all the furniture and items you will need for a baby.

Check out Naturepedic for GREENGUARD crib mattresses and bedding.  Additionally, go for 100% non-toxic eco-friendly versions of things you get for Baby’s room wherever possible. There are a lot of companies offering green baby stuff and here is a good example. 

8. Keep Pets Out

This is a no brainer, you don’t want pet hair and dandruff floating in your baby’s room. Your pets can come visit the room, but do not let them dwell. Let them occupy the rest of your home but avoid living them in the baby’s room and you have less of a headache keeping the air in there clean.

9. Keep Clean 

Cleaning your house often helps with keeping dust and surface allergens. You want to maintain a good bi-weekly vacuuming routine and a quarterly steam cleaning routine. Speaking of vacuuming, you should check out my recommendations on vacuum cleaners especially in homes with anyone who could be sensitive to airborne and surface pollutants. 

In the baby’s room, clean every corner and move stuff around so you do not miss a spot. Don’t let clutter and dirt build and clean up baby’s mess as that’s where dust mites and other unwanted critters that contribute to airborne pollutants thrive. If you struggle with decluttering, click here for a really helpful guide  that will show you how to declutter fast.

This is all I have to share for now on maintaining good air quality in baby’s room with air purifying plants.

One of the big challenges, if you have birds in your home or as a pet shop owner, is dealing with the pollution they produce. In searching for ways to deal with this, you may have come across the idea of air purifiers. However, you might have also heard air purifiers are potentially dangerous for birds and this has left you wondering,

Are air purifiers safe for birds? The short answer is, yes, but not all air purifiers are safe for birds. Some air purifiers are designed to specifically deal with indoor air pollution caused by pets, including birds. However other air purifiers, especially those that emit ozone are not safe and can actually kill birds.

Let me start by saying that, if you have a pet bird in your home, I highly recommend you invest in an air purifier, especially if you have powder down species like the African grey or cockatiel among others. You should also further consider one for your bird if you smoke.

You see, birds have highly efficient respiratory systems and inhale way more air per body weight than us. Accordingly, they are way more sensitive and vulnerable to airborne toxins in their environment than we are and you really have to ensure they have the best air quality possible.

In their natural habitat, plant life, and rain clean your bird’s air and they have ample good-quality air. However, in captivity, you expose your bird to unnatural levels of pollutants, including, cigarette smoke, traffic pollution, dust, cleaning chemicals and much more. 

Besides human pollution, you also expose your bird to higher than normal levels of pollution from their own dander and fecal matter than in their natural environment. So, if you don’t do anything to improve their air quality, you put their health at risk.

This is where air purifiers become very important and in the rest of this post I guide you on how to use air purifiers safely and ensure you are giving your bird the best air quality. If you read on, I start by showing you in detail all the potential threats of air purifiers to your birds.

Thereafter, I show you which air purifiers you should use and how to use air purifiers safely and optimally for your birds. Lastly, I show you a couple of extra things you should be doing, if you aren’t already, to get good air quality for your bird.

Threats Of Air Purifiers To Birds You Should Know Before Using An Air Purifier 

The biggest threat to your bird’s safety when using an air purifier has got to be ozone. When looking for an air purifier, you are bound to come across devices called, ozone generators, ionizers or plasma cluster air purifiers. All these produce ozone.

The reason why air purifiers that produce ozone are not safe for your bird is that ozone is a corrosive chemical that can damage your pet’s respiratory system. Minimal regular exposure of ozone over a long period can lower your bird’s immune system’s ability to fight respiratory infections.

Though ozone does have some strong air sanitization properties it is not advisable for use in a home with birds. What’s more, not only birds are affected by ozone but also humans, especially babies and toddlers or people with respiratory issues such as asthma or COPD. 

Some air purifiers are actually designed to produce ozone while others like plasma cluster and ionizer based purifiers, produce it unintentionally as a by-product of their air cleaning process and sometimes manufacturers don’t mention this.

Besides ozone, the other obvious danger of air purifiers to birds is the possibility of an air purifier catching fire due to an electrical fault or short-circuiting. Now, this threat is rare, but I have read about one too many stories of air purifiers short-circuiting and catching fire. 

If your air purifier is placed too close to your pet in this instance, there is a potential risk of your bird getting burnt or electrocuted in the process. Air purifiers can also be dangerous when placed in close proximity to your bird’s cage because they can create a draft.

Most air purifiers use a fan to suck and release air as part of their air purification process, and this airflow can create an uncomfortable draft for your bird.

If your bird is caught in the middle of your air purifiers airflow, as a caged animal, there is no way it can escape this and with a sensitive respiratory system, the cold air draft can get your bird sick. 

Though the airflow from your purifier may seem insignificant to you, your bird cannot take the cooling effect and dryness it may create over a long period of exposure.

Lastly, if you use an ionizer or plasma cluster air purifier, you will notice over time a thin film of dust starts to collect on surfaces around your home. The film of dust is a collection of neutralized pollutants that are a by-product of the cleaning process of these types of air purifiers. 

If this film of dust settles around your bird’s cage, your bird is at risk of inhaling or even consuming this unhealthy waste product. 

So these are all the ways that air purifiers can be unsafe for your bird that I have come across.  In summary, air purifiers can be unsafe for birds in four ways as follows,

1. If they produce ozone directly or as a byproduct,
2. Through an electrical fault,
3. By causing a draught, or
4. If they leave behind unhealthy waste products on surfaces

Keeping these dangers in mind, we can now have look at and better understand which air purifiers are suitable for you, if you are a bird keeper.

Which Air Purifiers Should You Use For Birds?

What To Avoid

I think if you have read this far, by now it’s quite obvious which air purifiers you should not use when you have birds. You have to avoid anything that produces ozone. The three types of air purifiers, I know that produce ozone includes, ozone generators, ionizers and any air purifier which has a plasma cluster. Don’t bother with these for your bird.

Furthermore, you also want to stay away from plasma cluster type devices and ionizers because of the thin film of byproduct they leave behind on surfaces around your home. You certainly do not want these by-products on your bird’s cage. 

Next, you want to stay away from any purifier below the US$100 price point. Most devices I have seen likely to catch fire or have an electrical fault while being used are under this price point. 

I have found the ideal price point for pet air purifiers, including birds is above US$150. Above that price point, you should be able to get a decent device.

Another common mistake I have seen people make when ordering an air purifier online is ordering a device with the wrong voltage for their country. Your device is sure to short circuit and potentially blow up should the country you live in operate on a higher voltage than your device is designed for. So please double check this.

Lastly, you want to avoid filtered air purifiers that have no activated carbon layer. This is because activated carbon helps you get rid of the unwanted odors your bird may produce. Unless of course odors are not an issue, then you can get any filter-based device that will help with just the airborne dust and dander.

What To Go For

The two types of air purifiers I have found work well for birds include activated carbon HEPA air purifiers and Photocatalytic Oxidation (PCO) air purifiers. Activated carbon HEPA purifiers are the most common type you will come across.

They get rid of both odors and solid pollutants released by your bird. Activated carbon absorbs gaseous pollutants in your air including odors while the HEPA part of the purifier captures the solid particulates.

When it comes to HEPA air purifiers though, just make sure you go for a True HEPA filter. If your device is not labeled True HEPA you should be questioning its ability to filter out ultrafine particulates released into your air by your bird.

As for PCO air purifiers, these types of purifiers are usually used in an industrial setting. Accordingly, you will see they are not as commonly available with retailers and online stores as other types of air purifiers. 

These devices are not widely produced, and they are not yet standardized and so you will find even ordering replacements parts for them can be a bit of hustle as you cannot find generic parts for them or even retrofit spares when you need to maintain your device.

Unlike filter-based air purifiers, PCO purifiers work by using wide spectrum UV light together with a thin titanium dioxide metal which acts as a catalyst to create a chemical reaction that burns airborne pollutants. The reaction burns pollutants turning them into harmless carbon dioxide and water.

The reaction happens within a reaction chamber in the core of the device while the device sucks in dirty air and blows out clean air into your home like the usual air purifier. You have to be careful with PCO air purifiers though as some older versions are reported to produce ozone. 

If you need to be absolutely sure of which air purifiers produce ozone or not, a good place to check is on the California Air resource boards website. They list pretty much every ozone-producing purifier you may come across.

PCO air purifiers get rid of smaller sized airborne pollutants than any other type of air purifier currently can. They will get rid of all pollutants that your bird produces. When I compare the two purifiers, I would go with a PCO air purifier because it’s a minimal maintenance device. 

However, in the long run, this type of purifier can become difficult to maintain as your model gets outdated, as usually, only your device manufacturer can provide you with spare parts. Activated carbon air purifiers, on the other hand, have to be maintained more frequently but spare parts for these are much easier to come by compared to other types of air purifiers.

If you weigh the costs over the long run, PCO air purifiers can be costlier than most HEPA purifiers because of their high initial purchase price. But if your HEPA purifier costs more than a PCO air purifier, I would choose the PCO purifier any day. 

That said, in terms of helping you and your bird, either of these two will work well. If you would like more in-depth information about all the different types of air purifiers available, you can find that here.

How To Best Use Air Purifiers For Your Bird

Once you have got the right air purifier for your bird, the next step is to use it properly. For me, the first step when it comes to using an air purifier for birds is to keep your bird’s cage out of direct exposure to your air purifiers airflow. 

For your bird’s peace of mind, I would position the air purifier as centrally as possible in the room but at least 5 feet away from your bird. Besides minimizing draft, this will minimize the level of noise from the air purifier that your bird has to endure.

Whatever air purifier you decide to get, make sure you get the correct size to cover your whole room. If you don’t you are not really going to see any improvement in your air quality and you would have wasted your money. 

Should you have multiple rooms where you need the air cleaned because of your bird, it’s a good idea to invest in an air purifier for each room. Alternatively, you can get an HVAC based PCO or activated carbon HEPA air purifier. 

This will clean the air in all the rooms of your house where your HVAC reaches. You can then further supplement this with a portable air purifier in the room where your bird resides. 

Oh and another thing I should have mentioned earlier is that, should you find yourself with an air purifier with an ionizer or plasma cluster, don’t be quick to throw it out. Sometimes these types of air purifiers do come with a switch that allows you to turn off the ozone producing function making your air purifier safe for your bird.

Lastly, when cleaning your purifier’s filters, it is wise to do this outdoors. Clean your filter by vacuuming it with a HEPA based vacuum cleaner once per month or as instructed in your appliance manual. Make sure to use the lowest speed setting of your vacuum cleaner as filters are fragile and can be damaged easily. 

That said, also note that most air purifier filters cannot be cleaned. You will get some with washable filters but consult your manual before attempting to wash any filter. Maintaining your device as advised in your manual is very critical to ensuring the best performance of your purifier in providing you and your feathered friend with good air quality.

Other Things To Consider When Using An Air Purifier To Improve Your Bird’s Air Quality

Besides playing around with your air purifier, you need to address your air quality issues as much as possible at the source. Your birdcage has to be cleaned often to minimize bad odors. You should also maintain your vacuuming routine and use a HEPA based vacuum cleaner.

Lastly, to reduce the level of dust your bird produces, you should provide your bird with regular bathing opportunities. In their normal habitat, birds get a chance to clean themselves in the rain or natural pools.  

For small birds, you can neatly install a pool in their cage. I found this one at Amazon quite cool. With bigger birds, like parrots, you can actually get them a shower perch which you can also get here at Amazon and take a shower with them. 

By Implementing these three basic pet hygiene measures while using an air purifier, you should have much better air quality in your home in no time. On this note let me leave you with a video of a parrot showering I found quite amusing. 

Whether you already own an air purifier or you are on the hunt for a new one, just like you, many people wonder how much electricity these appliances actually consume. I think the main concern, well at least for me, is whether I am adding another power-hungry device to my electricity bill.

So, briefly put, how much electricity do air purifiers consume? Air purifiers use anywhere between 10 to 900 watts of electricity per hour. Household air purifiers consume up to around 300 watts while industrial air purifiers consume up to 900 watts. The electricity usage of an air purifier varies based mainly on the technology it uses and its size.

Having looked at specifications for over 500 air purifiers, when it comes to household air purifiers, I have found for most of them you won’t really notice the impact on your electricity bill. That said, there are some odd household purifiers that can run up a cost large enough that you will think twice about if you add your daily cost over a year.

To give you a clear picture of what to expect when it comes to air purifiers and power consumption, I am going to walk you through pretty much everything you should think about when it comes to air purifiers and power consumption. 

I will start with factors that affect your air purifiers consumption, then take you through how to know exactly how much electricity an air purifier is using and a list of common air purifiers. I will also show you how much power they consume and finally, I will give you some useful tips on minimizing an air purifier’s power consumption.

I take you through all these things because this will help you deepen your understanding of why an air purifier consumes as much energy as it does and also help you better manage your purifier’s power consumption.

Factors That Determine Your Air Purifier’s Electricity Usage

In my research on this topic, I found there are five main factors behind how much electricity your air purifier will consume. These can be summarized as external (from outside the purifier) and direct factors (factors to do with components on or within your purifier).

Type Of Air Purifier Technology 

The type of air purifier technology refers to the kind of system your air purifier uses to clean your air. The common air purifier uses air filters however you also have air purifiers that produce chemicals or ions to clean the air or use UV light or heat to incinerate air pollutants. 

Some air purifiers also simply pass air through water stored in a tank in their core to remove pollutants. These different approaches consume different amounts of energy. 

With air purifiers that use filters, usually, the smaller the airborne particulates your filter can filter out the more energy your purifier will have to use as you need more effort to pass the air through your air filter. 

With UV based air purifiers, the wider the spectrum of UV light of the bulb in your purifier the more electricity your air purifier is going to use. Then when you compare like for like in terms of cleaning capacity and air changes, air purifiers that use air filters normally consume more electricity than filterless air purifiers.

Lastly, you have air purifiers that use multiple types of cleaning technologies at once. Like for like, these air purifiers, more often than not consume more electricity than single cleaning technology-based air purifiers.

Running  Speed & Environment

Running speed is the speed at which your air purifier draws and releases air into your house. Generally, your air purifier will use more energy the faster it can pull and release air. A lot of air purifiers come with various speed settings ranging from low to high and for all air purifiers, electricity consumption is much higher when your air purifier is set on high.

Some purifiers also come with some automation that enables your device to switch speed settings according to the level of pollution in your home. Accordingly, if the environment your air purifier has to operate in is highly polluted, the faster it operates to get rid of pollutants the more electricity it will use.

If you leave your windows or doors open, you also create a much bigger coverage area for your air purifier and if it has the automated speed function, it will operate on its most intensive power consumption mode. 

For air purifiers that operate on 1 speed, a more polluted environment means more pollutants clogging their cleaning core and more resistance for your purifiers fan or more work for your air purifiers cleaning chamber in the case of UV based purifiers. This increased level of activity means your air purifier has to push its limits in terms of energy consumption.

For devices that release cleaning chemicals that neutralize pollutants, the story is different. With a more polluted environment, they have to work for longer periods to clean your air and accordingly consume more electricity.

Size Of Air Purifier Fan

There are very few types of air purifiers that do not have a fan and of those that do, they come in different shapes and sizes. 

The physics when it comes to fans is that the bigger and heavier the propeller of your fan, the more energy you will need to spin it. So naturally, the bigger your air purifier fan the more electricity it will consume.

Area Coverage Capacity

Area coverage capacity is just a fancy way of saying how much room your air purifier has to cover. This is a no brainer, the larger the space your air purifier can cover, the larger your air purifier has to be, the larger its cleaning system and the more electricity it will use. This may not always be the case but anecdotally I have found this to be the case most of the time.

Watt Rating

The watt rating of your air purifier is the amount of electricity it consumes per hour. So if you have a 300 W air purifier, this means it consumes 300 watts per hour. Usually, your air purifier can consume less electricity than its watt rating. 

So what the watt rating tells you is the highest amount of electricity your air purifier can possibly consume per hour at its full operating capacity.  

All the other factors I have mentioned can only ultimately drive your air purifier to use as much electricity per hour as its watt rating. If you find your air purifier using at least 10 watts more energy than its rating, then your air purifier could be faulty and you may have to get an electrician to check it out.

These are key factors determining whether your air purifier will consume more or less electricity. With these in mind, lets now look at how to calculate your air purifier’s electricity usage.

How To Calculate Your Air Purifier’s Electricity Usage

An important part of the puzzle when determining how much electricity your air purifier consumes is how much it translates to in monetary terms in addition to the actual quantity of electricity it consumes. Here is how you calculate all this from scratch.

The units to measure the amount of electricity being used are known as watts. Watts (W) can also be expressed as kilowatts (kW) by dividing the amount in watts by 1000. 

This means 1000 W is equivalent to 1 kW. When someone tells you, your appliance’s power consumption is 10 W it means every hour your appliance uses 10 W of electricity.

Now, say you run your air purifiers 24 hours each day. To work out your electricity usage in a day, you simply multiply 10 W by 24 hours and this means you use 240 W or 0.24 kW per day when you run your air purifier.

Then if you want to know your air purifier’s usage per month, simply multiply 240 W by 30 days to get 7200 W or 7.2 kW per month. You can further multiply the monthly figure by 12 months to find out your usage per year which will be 86.4 kW. 

The importance of converting your usage in watts to kilowatts is that it makes it easy to convert your usage to monetary terms. This is because our electricity cost is normally quoted in kilowatts. For example, your local electricity rate will usually be quoted in the following format: 10c/kWh (10 cents per kilowatt-hours). 

If you already converted your usage to kilowatts as we did above then to work out our yearly air purifier electricity usage we would simply multiply 86.4 kW by 10c/kWh to get an annual usage cost of 864 cents or if you divide by 100 to convert cents to dollars, then that is US$8.6 per year.

To simplify everything all the calculations above can be done using the following simple formula:

Total Air Purifier Kilowatt Usage Per Day = (Energy Consumption (watts per hour of your air purifier) × Hours your unit is used) ÷ 1000

Total Daily Air Purifier Electricity Cost = Total Air Purifier Kilowatt Usage Per Day × Electricity Cost (dollars or cents Per kWh)

Total Annual Air Purifier Electricity Cost = Total Air Purifier Kilowatt Usage Per Day × Electricity Cost (dollars or cents Per kWh) × 365 Days

You will notice for the annual cost I multiplied the daily cost by 365 days as opposed to 12 months multiplied by the monthly cost. I did this as 365 days is more accurate but if you just want a rough estimate you can use the monthly calculation approach.

One other thing you might be wondering about is where you can find the Energy Consumption rate of an air purifier. Usually, this is written on the appliance’s packaging or you can look for the specifications of your specific appliance online on the manufacturer’s website. 

Worst case scenario if you already own the air purifier that you are trying to calculate the power consumption for and cannot determine its wattage by any other means, you can use an energy consumption monitoring device like the Sense or Kill A Watt P​​3 P4400  energy monitoring devices. 

Let us now look at some actual air purifier usage figures.

How Much Electricity Air Purifiers Actually Use & How Much This Will Cost You

As you have seen earlier the key variables you need to know how much electricity your air purifier uses and how much it will cost you are your air purifier’s power rating and your area’s electricity cost per kilowatt-hour. If you live in the US, to make your life easy below is an interactive map with average electricity cost figures per state.

If you want more accurate costs, you can see your electricity cost down to your Zip Code on this website. As for power consumption figures, in the table below are power consumption figures for some common air purifiers. 

I have also included the monthly and annual electricity bills you can expect for each purifier model based on the U.S average electricity rate of 13.19 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Air Purifier Model	Power Consumption Rate – Watts	Monthly Electricity Cost – US$	Annual Electricity Cost – US$
IQAir HealthPro Plus	215	20.42	248.42
Honeywell 50250-S HEPA Round Air Purifier	200	18.99	231.09
Blueair Pro L	170	16.14	196.43
Austin Air Healthmate	135	12.82	155.98
Honeywell HPA300	130	12.35	150.21
Blueair 403	120	11.40	138.65
Alen Breathesmart	105	9.97	121.32
Field Controls TRIO	100	9.50	115.54
Amaircare 3000 VOC	84	7.98	97.06
Haverhill HAP52010E	60	5.70	69.33
Rabbit Air MinusA2	48	4.56	55.46
Whirlpool Whispure 510	39	3.70	45.06
Levoit LV-H132	28	2.66	32.35
Winix WAC9500	15	1.42	17.33
Coway AP-1512HH	15	1.42	17.33

Looking at the amount of electricity some air purifiers consume yearly, you could potentially buy another air purifier at an annual cost of US$240. However, remember that some air purifiers will consume a lot more energy because they are doing a better job cleaning your house. 

So, you have to weigh the results you are getting for the amount of energy consumed to see if your investment was worthwhile from an energy perspective.

If you happen to be going for an air purifier that is not on the list, following the formula I gave you above, below is a calculator to help you know the rough amount of electricity your exact air purifier is using.

Air Purifier Electricity Cost Calculator[tcb-script async=”” src=”https://cdn.omnicalculator.com/sdk.js”][/tcb-script]

All you need to enter in the calculator is your electricity rate for your area and your air purifier watt rating and you are good to go. You can change the calculator results to reflect your daily, monthly and annual electricity consumption and cost.

How Air Purifier Electricity Consumption Compares To Other Appliances

Once you know how much your air purifier consumes, to put things into perspective, and gauge if your air purifier is heavy on electricity, it helps to compare your usage statistics to other appliances in your home.

So looking at other appliances, you will find on average a computer consumes around 365 watts of electricity, while fridges range between 200 and 300 watts. Your light bulb will do anywhere between 60W and 120W, an air conditioner 600W and your washing machine is the most draining at 2000W.

Looking at the average electricity consumption rate of other common household appliances I think a household air purifier is generally on the low to mid-range of power consumption, depending on what brand you go for.

Based on the comparison with other appliances, I personally would not stress so much about my air purifiers’ power consumption unless I was adding multiple units in my home. Otherwise, your electricity cost from adding a single air purifier to your home should not really break the bank.

How To Minimize Your Air Purifier’s Electricity Consumption

Having determined how much electricity your air purifier consumes, should you find yourself in a situation whereby you need to minimize your air purifiers consumption level for whatever reason, then here are some steps you can try.

To reduce the amount of energy your air purifier uses, you can start by keeping your windows closed. This will keep out outdoor pollutants, and reduce the intensity at which your air purifier needs to work and subsequently how much electricity it consumes. 

In addition to keeping your windows and doors closed, weatherizing your home can also help minimize the level of pollutants from outdoor air coming into your home. Weatherizing also generally improves your energy efficiency. 

That said,  if you are weatherizing make sure you have air purifiers in your home because by weatherizing you increase the concentration of air pollutants produced from within your home. 

The next thing you can try in efforts to minimize your purifier’s power consumption is to get a smart air purifier. There are quite a number of smart purifier models on the market now and these devices can be programmed to switch off or run at different speeds over certain periods of time.

There are some devices you can also control remotely with an app. You can just imagine what you can do with such functionality from an energy-saving perspective. 

Lastly, go for devices that have an eco-friendly mode and are energy star rated. With an energy star rated device, you can save up to 40% on your appliances’  annual power consumption as compared to a similar device that is not energy rated. 

With all these measures in mind, you should really be able to make a considerable reduction in your air purifiers’ electricity consumption.

I think I have yapped on enough now and if you have read through the whole post you should now be absolutely clear on what you’re doing when it comes to air purifiers and energy consumption. If you have any questions or anything you would like to add, feel free to comment below.

Whether you call it atopic dermatitis or eczema, this is a serious skin problem whereby your skin gets itchy, cracked, scaly, red and swollen. It’s usually triggered by what you eat, scratching and sensitive skin. Besides these, another major trigger is poor air quality and this is where many people start to wonder if air purifiers can help.

So, briefly put, are air purifiers good for eczema? Air purifiers are good for eczema but the correct air purifier needs to be used. Air purifiers can help stop eczema from flaring up by getting rid of airborne particulates in indoor air that trigger the condition and maintaining good indoor air quality.

Through my years of research on air purifiers, I have come across a number of studies showing the harmful effects of air pollution on your skin. Air pollution not only makes you age faster but apart from eczema can cause skin cancer, psoriasis, and acne. This is where air purifiers come in.

You can vacuum your home, and clean up regularly in efforts to prevent or alleviate eczema flare-ups but with all kinds of pollutants in the air, you may find your efforts are short-lived and you have been fighting a losing battle. 

However, with an air purifier, you can reach what I call the last frontier of filth in your home, “airborne pollutants.” An air purifier will help you see better results with your cleaning efforts to minimize eczema. 

Air purifiers have become an important tool in the fight against eczema and if you would like more detail on how you can take full advantage of them, I have got you covered in the rest of this post. 

I show you everything from scientific evidence that air purifiers work for eczema to which air purifiers will actually work and how to use them properly. 

So, what are you waiting for? Read on to learn more.

Can Air Purifiers Really Help With Eczema?

Besides many success stories from people who have used air purifiers, one study convinced me the most that air purifiers are good for eczema. The study was done on 24 families, who had 18 people with eczema in total. The researchers installed air purifiers in the homes of each family. 

They examined the severity of eczema on the infected participants and indoor air quality before and after the installation of air purifiers for each family over a period of 24 weeks. 

When the 24 weeks ended, the researchers found that the air purifiers they installed significantly reduced indoor pollutants including VOCs and particulate matter in each participant’s home.

With the decreased level of pollution, they also found the severity of eczema decreased for every infected participant. The conclusion of the study was that air purifiers may improve the severity of eczema by reducing air pollutants like fine particles and VOCs and that the study could be used as a basis for using air purifiers to prevent aggravation of eczema.

There are other similar studies out there but this was the one that made me draw my final conclusion on how air purifiers are actually useful for eczema. Combining the studies with plenty of anecdotal evidence from people’s personal experience reported across various platforms online, I have no doubt that air purifiers are good for eczema.

The question you should be asking, however, is “what kind of air purifier should I get?” You should also be thinking about how to get the most out of your air purifier in dealing with you or your loved one’s condition. I discuss all this next.

How To Make Sure An Air Purifier Works For Eczema

The are several things you have to consider when it comes to making an air purifier work well for eczema. Simply put you need to have the right type of air purifier and you need to know how to operate your air purifier properly. 

So what do I mean by the right type of purifier?

Type Of Air Purifier For Eczema

There are several types of air purifiers out there. However, after going through hundreds of reviews and articles online, I have found the only types of air purifiers worth your time for eczema are Activated Carbon True HEPA and Photocatalytic Oxidation (PCO) air purifiers. 

Activated Carbon HEPA Air Purifiers

Most activated carbon HEPA air purifiers remove at least 99.97% of all particles as small as 0.3 microns. However, you will find some that will remove ultrafine particles that are as small as 0.1 microns. 

The activated carbon part of the air purifier works by absorbing gases and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) from the air while the HEPA filter part captures particles.

The HEPA filter only allows very small particles to pass through it and so you are going to find that many HEPA air purifiers also come with a pre-filter that captures larger particles such as pet hair. 

With the HEPA part of the air purifier, you will capture small particles including allergens such as mold spores, dust, and pollen. An activated carbon air purifier is accordingly a good investment for you if you have eczema or allergies caused by airborne particulates and gases.

Photocatalytic Oxidation (PCO) Air Purifiers

As for PCO air purifiers, these work by using a wide spectrum UV light together with a metal catalyst (usually titanium dioxide) to create a chemical reaction that incinerates air pollutants. Pollutants in your indoor air are incinerated by your purifier and turned into water vapor and harmless carbon dioxide.

With a PCO air purifier, you can also get rid of VOCs and particulates just like the activated carbon HEPA purifier does. However, with the PCO air purifiers, you destroy the pollutants rather than capture them. 

With a PCO air purifier, you can also get rid of much finer air pollutants at 0.001 microns. You will also find that these types of air purifiers can more easily cover larger rooms than HEPA air purifiers. 

I like PCO air purifiers because they are filterless. You don’t have the hustle of replacing filters as you do for activated carbon HEPA air purifiers. That said when it comes to time to replace your UV bulb, it becomes a bit of a challenge as PCO air purifiers are not a common appliance. 

So these are the two types of air purifiers that I have found are the right type for eczema. You will come across other types and combinations. Some examples include ozone generators, ionizers, and UV air purifiers. 

All these are a waste of time for eczema sufferers and I say steer clear from them. You will get the odd combo air purifier with multiple cleaning technologies but if you find no PCO or activated carbon and HEPA technology on a potential air purifier don’t waste time on such a device. 

Once again I say, the only types of air purifiers you should be looking at for eczema are PCO and Activated Carbon HEPA Air Purifiers. I have described these types of air purifiers very briefly here, but if you want a more in-depth guide on all the different types of air purifiers you will come across out there, check out my post on this here.

Room Size

Once you have identified the correct type of air purifier for you, the next thing you need to make sure is to get an air purifier that has the capacity to cover the whole area in which you need your air cleaned.

I have a detailed guide on what size air purifier you should get here, however briefly put, for eczema sufferers make sure you get an air purifier that can cover at least 300 sq ft more than the room size you want to clean air in. 

This will ensure that your air is completely cleaned at all times in your concerned room and the approach applies to both HEPA and PCO air purifiers.

Placement

Now, if you have the right air purifier at home already, you have to place it on a good spot to ensure it cleans your air as effectively as possible. 

You have to make sure your air purifier is put in a place where it is free of any obstruction to its air intake and output as most air purifiers rely on airflow to clean your air. 

To learn more about positioning your air purifier correctly check out this post for detailed information on how to position an air purifier for best results.

Maintenance

I touched briefly on maintenance earlier. To the best of my knowledge and base on my experience with air purifiers, if you do not replace your air purifier parts (this is mainly filters for activated carbon HEPA purifiers or bulbs for PCO air purifiers) then its as good as not having an air purifier. 

This is especially true for eczema sufferers. Your air purifier will leave pollutants lurking in your room if not maintained as advised in your appliance’s manual. 

So make sure you are washing your filter regularly if you have a washable filter and that you have a parts replacement schedule in place to keep your unit operating at its best.

Other Things To Look Out For

Some additional minor caveats I like to point out to everyone include making sure you get a unit with a sealed system and a good air exchange per hour (ACH) rate. 

If you have allergies or eczema, a sealed system air purifier is very important. A sealed system air purifier ensures that all air going through your purifier does not come out until it is cleaned.

Additionally, you should aim to get an air purifier that can do at least 3 ACH. This ACH level is the minimum recommended to help with eczema.

Some Air Purifiers That Work For  Eczema

Here are three air purifier models, I have found are worth your while for eczema. 

The IQAir HealthPro Plus

The first activated carbon air purifier I vouch for when it comes to eczema is the IQAir HealthPro Plus. It is crazy expensive but it is among the most effective for eczema sufferers I have come across. It is as good as HEPA air filters get at removing pollutants. 

This air purifier will get rid of particulates that are as small as 0.003 microns as compared to 0.1 microns by the usual true-HEPA purifier. It is a big machine, but that’s because it covers rooms of up to 1200 sq ft. I call this air purifier the workhorse of HEPA room air purifiers.

The Fellowes AeraMax 300

If you are looking for a True HEPA air purifier that kicks butt in the lower price range, the AeraMax 300 is quite a good choice. However, you should take note that with HEPA air purifiers you usually get what you pay for. Accordingly, unlike the IQ Air, the AeraMax can only filter 99.97% of airborne particles down to 0.3 microns. 

This is good enough for eczema as you will collect pollen, dust mites, mold spores, and pet dander plus your activated carbon filter will further help with eczema triggering VOCs. However, you only get an area coverage capacity of 600 sq ft. My take is, therefore, to go for the AeraMax 300 if you are trying to improve air quality in a small room. 

The Airocide Air Purifier

Last but definitely not least, I think you should also consider the Airocide air purifier. This is one of the few PCO air purifiers among the few that exist that I recommend. The other brand I would suggest when it comes to PCO is Air Oasis but I like the Airocide purifiers mainly because the manufacturer stands strongly behind its products. 

If you are not satisfied with your device and you have had it for up to 6 weeks, just call up Airocide and let them know and they take their air purifier back and give you a full refund for it. 

The Airocide covers up to a whopping 3000 sq ft of space and destroys virtually all pollutants in your air. Personally I think it’s among the best investments you can make for eczema when it comes to air purifiers. 

I discuss all these air purifiers and other options and the best place to get them in more detail here. But remember, whatever you go for, make sure you stick either to an activated carbon HEPA air purifier or a PCO air purifier. 

Also, don’t make the mistake of going for low-cost appliances (below US$150). I have seen such purifiers prove themselves worthless far too many times for things like eczema, that I strongly advise against them. A lot of the time you get what you pay for with air purifiers.

Other Measures To Implement Together With Air Purifiers 

Something you should be completely aware of when it comes to air purifiers and eczema is that they are not a cure for eczema. If anyone says so then disregard everything else they are going to tell you. 

Yes, air purifiers help improve your situation but they only go so far. You have to use your air purifier with other preventive measures like keeping your home clean and most importantly following your doctor’s advice.

Only then do you start to see the real benefits of an air purifier. Accordingly here are three other critical things you should do in addition to purifying your air.

Use a Humidifier

Firstly if the air is dry where you live, this can aggravate your eczema. You might find you are running your air purifier and your air quality is good after several tests, but this is not doing anything to help your eczema. 

In this case, the first point of call is to check your humidity level. A good humidity level is around 40-50%. If you find you are way below 40%, then your air is too dry and it’s probably why you are not getting good results with your air purifier.

So to solve this, in addition to using your air purifier, you also need to use a humidifier to add much-needed moisture to your air. You can get a stand-alone humidifier or an air purifier with a builtin humidifier to help you do this. I strongly recommend smart humidifiers that you can set to automatically run when your humidity is out of range.  

Use Hypoallergenic Bedding’s

When you use normal bedding, these have surfaces in which dust mite and other pollutants can easily lodge themselves into and hide in and if you have sensitive skin, asthma or eczema you get a reaction just by sleeping using normal bedding.

Scientists realized this and developed hypoallergenic materials that prevent the build-up of allergen on their surface. The materials are now used on pillows, mattresses, bed covers, sheets, and other household linen. 

Such household linens are a great preventive approach for eczema sufferers and so consider switching to hypoallergenic linen.  

Clean Your House Regularly

I am quite sure you are cleaning your house often if you have eczema. If you aren’t, find a way to get your house cleaned on a weekly basis at a minimum. When cleaning, use vacuum cleaners with a HEPA filter for dust.

If you have pets, keep them off of your upholstery and out of your bedroom. Shampoo your carpet at least once a month. Also, keep your humidity at a good level to prevent mold and mildew growth, and wipe down your walls often.

Some people even go as far as getting rid of carpeting and switching to tiles or hardwood floors to keep the dirt and allergy-causing bacteria out. Also when cleaning surfaces and clothes, switch to more organic and eco-friendly cleaning chemicals that are more gentle on your skin.

I see the above three nonmedical measures as pivotal for easing eczema, before implementing other measures including using an air purifier. If you are doing the above correctly you increase your chances of getting great results for eczema when using your air purifier.

On this note, I trust that you now fully understand how you can benefit from air purifiers and whether they are worth it for you if you suffer from eczema. That said, please be sure to consult your doctor and get medical attention before you take any other steps to deal with your condition.

With increasing air pollution, wildfires, and pandemics such as the corona virus lurking around, the demand for pollution masks has been on the rise. Seeing people wearing pollution masks is becoming so common but it’s less common for babies so recently I have been wondering if you can actually get anti-pollution masks for babies.

Accordingly, I started looking for air pollution masks for babies and I found it’s actually quite difficult to find masks for babies. Pollution masks for babies are difficult to find as masks are mainly made for adults.

Regardless, I found several masks that can do the job but as I explain later you have to be very cautious when trying any of these. Out of all the masks, I personally preferred the Kapmore 3PCS Mouth Mask (click to see it here at Amazon) because of its high flexibility and ease of use on babies compared to the other masks. 

To help you make the best choice for your child when it comes to masks in the rest of this post, I explain how masks work and take you through some precautions when it comes to using masks on babies. 

Once you’ve grasped the workings of masks in the context of a baby, I then show you some masks that are in my opinion worth trying out for babies. 

So, let’s get started with how masks work so you can appreciate the safeguards you have to put in place when it comes to getting the right mask for your little one.

How Anti Pollution Masks Work

In my quest to find anti-pollution masks for babies, the first thing I found was important to know was how anti-pollution masks work. Knowing how masks work helped me better understand all the caveats and what exactly to look for when it comes to babies’ masks.

An air pollution mask can be made of fabric, microfiber or processed paper. It may have a layer of activated carbon to eliminate some gaseous contaminants. It may also have stainless steel or plastic girders for shape and strength

Air pollution masks protect you by acting as a shield between you and the pollutants in the air. They prevent you from breathing in harmful airborne particles and some gases by blocking them from entering your body through your mouth and nose.

Pollution masks are made of various materials. Some are made of plastic, microfibers, fabric and even processed paper. Some masks also have multiple layers of filtration material including HEPA and activated carbon filters.

Most masks will come with adjustable ear loops to adjust them to hold tightly to your face, while others will have loops that go around the back of your head and neck. 

If you get a mask made of cloth or fabric, these are usually not so effective as most pollutants can seep through the fabric. Apparently you can only prevent yourself from inhaling up to 50% of pollutants with fabric masks. 

Moreover, no particulate mask will completely protect you from gases or vapor. You will actually need a gas mask to prevent the inhalation of gaseous and vaporized pollutants.

With this in mind, if you are looking for a good anti-pollution mask, avoid fabric masks, including surgical masks. The more effective masks are masks with respirators and more specifically masks rated N95 to N100. 

Rated masks contain multiple filtration layers that prevent pollutants that are as small as 0.3 microns from passing through and being inhaled by you. The main ratings for masks include N95, N99 and N100 and these respectively block up to 95%, 99% and 97% of pollutants measuring 0.3 microns and larger.

The rated masks will protect you from combustion particles, various airborne organic compounds, and metal particulates, bacteria, viruses, dust, pollen, mold and various particulates that are of comparable size.

For extra protection against gaseous pollutants, look for gas masks that are rated CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear). This is very hard to come across for babies. 

Good CBRN gas masks deal with both particulate, vapor, and gases. They deal with all particulates and also prevent gaseous and vaporized substances including biological aerosols, radioactive dust, volatile organic compounds, inorganic gases among many others from entering your air passage.

Irrespective of ratings, some masks are designed for reuses while others you only use once and dispose of. You can also get masks that are washable and others where you just replace your mask’s filter when it wears out.

As most masks work by intercepting pollutants on their route to your nose and mouth, it is important to make sure they fit tightly on your face. There should be no gaps where pollutants cant leak through into your mask, otherwise you are still largely exposed to the pollutants you are protecting yourself from.

The best way to minimize gaps is firstly to get an appropriately sized mask. Next, try to get a mask with flexible and highly adjustable loops that can be comfortably tightened to fit. 

A common complaint with pollution masks is that some get to tight and put a strain on your ears and nasal bridge. Other people complain about uncomfortable breathing, especially for masks packed with heavy filtration. 

If masks do not fit well and you wear glasses or a helmet you will find your glasses or helmet starting to steam up and obstructing your sight. This will be a concern for infants that wear glasses, but for most babies not really. 

Now that you know the key elements of how pollution masks work, I am sure you can already see issues about whether they are okay for babies or not. I discuss this next.

Can Babies Wear Masks For Air Pollution?

The major question I and many others interested in pollution masks for babies ask, once they understand the workings of masks, are,

• Will I find a mask that fits my child?
• Will my baby be able to breathe through a mask?
• Are masks safe for babies?

I came across answers to all these questions and much more. First and foremost, if you have a newborn, masks are a complete no no and out of question. I don’t think any newborn has the lung strength to breathe through an N95 filter or any worthwhile mask. 

Furthermore, depending on the kind of mask you get, your newborn’s head may not be strong enough to withstand the pressure of the mask’s strap on its ears or head. Your baby’s head is just not strong enough when it’s only a couple of months old, and putting a tight strap around it is risky business.

From personal observation, you should only consider an air pollution mask for babies who can crawl on their own, and that’s for babies from about 6 months old. I strongly suggest if you are not sure, you start by consulting your doctor or pediatrician before trying a mask on your baby.

Now with regards to size, once your baby is able to wear masks, most pollution masks for the youngest infants I have seen are labeled ages 2-5 years old but you will find masks that will fit children as young as 6 months old. 

As far as safety is concerned, you have to be vigilant when your child has a mask on. Make sure for the first couple of days, you check on your child’s comfort when it comes to breathing and tightness. Also, don’t let your child sleep with a mask on. That’s a sacrilege.

If your child is crying or shows any sign of discomfort then you have to ditch the mask. In short, I can say pollution masks are generally okay to be worn by babies over 6 months old but finding a good mask for your baby, and at times getting your baby to accept to wear one can be tricky. 

So, be prepared when you get one for your child as chances are you may end up not using it. Baby pollution masks are really a trial and error product. There are no official guidelines for them and this is the big reason why there are a lot of question marks around them. 

The 4 Best Anti Pollution Masks That Babies Can Wear

You will notice on your search for anti-pollution masks that sometimes they are also called mouth masks. It took me a while to realize that this is how baby masks are commonly described online and my search for good anti-pollution masks for babies was that much harder before I realized.

Keeping in mind the complexities around baby pollution masks, below are 4 masks I have found that will likely work best for your baby. Again, before you try any of these, I cannot stress enough the importance of taking all the precautionary measures, I mentioned previously. 

Kapmore 3PCS Mouth Mask Dustproof Breathable Face Mouth Mask Mouth Cover for Kids Babies

The first mask I found worth considering is the Kapmore Dust-proof Breathable Face Mask. It is made of cotton yarn and feels extremely soft which is good for your baby’s skin and ensuring minimal discomfort.

The straps for this mask can easily be adjusted to fit your baby and are designed to be gentle and not to hurt your baby’s ears in any way. Its the only mask I found online that explicitly states that it is suitable for babies from age 0 upwards.

The mask comes in a variety of colors with cute baby patterns but unfortunately, you cannot pick the color you want if you order it online. This mask will protect your baby mainly from particulate pollution (solid ultra-fine airborne particles) and airborne germs and bacteria but it’s not the best for gaseous pollutants.

The mask is washable and reusable but has to be replaced after 3 months of use. Fortunately, when you buy it, it comes in a pack of three or more so you always have a year’s supply when you order it. You can check out the mask here at amazon.

Rarmycus Kids Anti Pollution Mask with Activated Carbon Filters 

The Rarmycus Kids Mask is also soft on the skin and made of soft cotton. Its made of breathable material and is comfortable for most children. It has a breathing valve to make breathing much easier and it comes with an activated carbon filter that you can insert within the sleeve of the mask.

This mask is good for protection against exhaust fumes, dust, pollen, smog and common bacteria in your air.

The straps are elastic and adjustable but do not look suitable for children below a year old. The masks are labeled for age 3 and above but they can be safely used on younger children who can crawl and easily take the mask off on their own. 

The mask is reusable and can be washed. However, the filter eventually has to be disposed of and replaced at least every month depending on how often you use it. This anti-pollution mask comes in a variety of colors and it is available here at Amazon. 

Halyard Child’s Masks

Another mask I found that works well for children is the Halyard Child’s Masks made of cotton. This is a very basic, gauze-like mask, with knitted ear loops that are safe for your child’s ears and though it’s designed for children over the age of 4 years it can be adjusted to fit younger children. 

The mask can is disposable but it is a notch above a surgical mask offering protection against airborne viruses and germs, dust, smoke and various small particulates in your air but it’s not an airtight fit and will leak. 

So go for this mask if you just need the bare minimum protection for your child. The mask is skin-friendly and when you order it you will receive 75 of them in a box. The mask comes with cute cartoon prints on it and is gender-neutral in terms of color. You can check out the mask at Amazon here.

MIRA KZD-6 Protective Enclosure / Infant Gas Mask for Small Children & Pets

The final mask for babies and in my opinion by far the best option, if your baby is under 18 months of age, is the MIRA KZD-6 protective enclosure. The MIRA KZD-6 is a one of a kind mask and I am yet to see any other mask like it being retailed online.

It’s unique in that it is actually a mini tent that completely covers your baby’s body. This completely eliminates the challenge of finding a face mask that fits your baby’s face well. Besides, dealing with worries about what size mask to get, the mask deals with all kinds of particulate and most common pollutant gases and vapors.

The main restriction with this mask is that your baby cannot weigh more than 30 lbs. You can pop your baby inside the mask and carry him/her around using its strap or simply place the unit in your pram while your baby sits comfortably inside it.

This mask will last you 10 years with filter replacements, so you can use it on multiple children overtime through their infancy if you plan to have more than one child. You have to see this mask for yourself. Check out the MIRA Safety KZD – 6 here.

So, these are the 4 masks I found worth trying out for babies at the time of writing this post. All the masks I have mentioned except MIRA masks are fabric, and as I mentioned earlier you just won’t get complete pollution protection for your baby from fabric masks. That said the protection they offer is better nothing. 

I would personally go with the Kapmore mask out of the 3 fabric masks as its the most comfortable, protective and versatile. Otherwise, for optimal protection, the MIRA KZD-6 is the way to go. Its made of premium Butyl rubber which unlike the fabric masks available for babies completely prevents leaks into your baby’s mask.

As you search for pollution masks for babies, you will notice these are not a widely manufactured product line but I expect with all kinds of worry about our worsening global air quality, and viral pandemics like the recent corona virus, baby’s masks will start becoming a more widely available product. 

Besides the above masks one other mask I stumbled on that I think every parent needing to protect their baby should get is the Nipple Dust Mask. It is basically an antipollution mask specially tailored for babies of a few months old and older. The mask even contains a pacifier. You can have a look at on the video below.

 Unfortunately, the Nipple Dust Mask is in its’s concept phase at the moment, but I hope to see it released soon. Its quite a useful tool and I don’t see why such anti-pollution masks are not yet mainstream.

Other Ways To Keep Your Baby Safe From Pollution

So, I have shown you the various masks that I discovered work best for babies and young children. If you are the unfortunate parent whose baby just won’t wear a mask, do not be dismayed. 

You might struggle to keep your child safe if you are outdoors but if you are indoors, you can easily make sure your child is breathing good quality air. The best way to keep your baby’s air quality at its best indoors is to use an air purifier. 

There are many different types of air purifiers out there but briefly put, these devices provide you with good quality air by sucking up the dirty air in your home, passing it through some filters or a reaction chamber to get rid of the pollutants and finally releasing the cleaned air back into your home.

Air purifiers are not only available for homes, but you can also use these in a car or even in your baby’s pram while you are taking a stroll. Besides air purifiers, you can also invest in an air quality monitor which shows you the level of pollution indoors and outdoors. 

By knowing your pollution levels, you know exactly when you need to take extra action to ensure you have clean air indoors. You also know exactly when the air is terrible outside and when the air outside is good enough for you to take your baby out for fresh air. You can have a look at some awesome air quality monitors I suggest here.

Some common sense also goes a long way in preventing your baby from getting exposed to poor air quality. For example on your commute, plan to stay away from busy motorways, and simply limit how much time your child spends outside. 

If you plan to take your child around in a stroller, invest in a high clearance stroller. This will ensure your baby is above 2 feet (60cm) from the ground which is the level at which pollution is the worst when you are walking around in the street. 

In conclusion, my take is, give baby pollution masks a try and make sure you are using them together with all other approaches I have shown you to improve your baby’s air quality. If the mask thing does not work out for you, then do your best to minimize your baby’s exposure to pollution by using the alternative approaches I have mentioned.

If you live in a busy city, and you enjoy jogging or any form of outdoor sports one thing that can really mess with your work out time is pollution from traffic and industry. Pollution nowadays is so bad that in some cities people say they get an after taste of fumes in their mouths and at times a tingling sensation in their chest after an intense outdoor workout.

The thing is as you work out outdoors, you are forced to inhale a much higher volume of air cause you need more oxygen to sustain your body. You are breathing heavy, and if the air where you live is dirty, you inhale all sorts of dangerous pollutants it contains.

Accordingly, because of the large of pollutants you breathe in when working out outdoors, you put yourself at risk of health issues like asthma flare-ups, COPD, cancer, poor fitness levels, and even a stroke.

This is where anti-pollution masks tailored for those of us who like to work out outdoors come in handy. With the correct anti-pollution mask for sports, you can beat the pollution and safely continue your outdoor sports activity. In this light, I wrote this post to show you what options you have.

Of all the sports anti-pollution masks I came across on my search for the best one, I found the U-Mask to be the most protective because of its biotechnology filtration approach. However, if you want the best level of protection from pollutants I found gas masks are the best way to go and for outdoor sports, I highly suggest MIRA Safety’s Gas Masks. 

Now, before I show you all the pollution masks I found to be fit for outdoor sports in detail, I first show you how pollution masks work and then give you some tips and tricks to get the most out of them. With this information, you should be good to go to continue doing outdoor sports while minimizing your exposure to air pollution.

How Anti-Pollution Masks Work

The way anti-pollution masks work is very simple. From my experience with masks, I have seen two types in terms of air filtration systems. These include the usual anti-pollution masks which use mechanical filtration and the less common biotechnology mask which uses biological filtration.

For both these types of masks, the idea is to keep very small airborne particles that makeup pollution called particulate matter from going into your lungs through your mouth and nose. In this way, masks protect you from the harmful effects of air pollution.

All masks act as a shield between your mouth and/or your nose and polluted air. The common mechanical filtration masks contain a filter material which captures particulate matter as you inhale before they reach your respiratory system. 

The biotechnology filtration mask, on the other hand, contains a filter with some enzymes which digest pollutants that get captured within the mask as you breathe in and out. The pollutants are decomposed into harmless water vapor and carbon dioxide before they get the chance of entering your respiratory system.

When looking for a sports anti-pollution mask, I found that they are also called exercise masks (not to be confused with altitude elevation masks), respirator mask or dust masks. I also found mainly two types of masks in terms of how masks are built.

There are masks that cover both your mouth and nose and some that only cover your nose. Of the two types, when it comes to sports I recommend you only go for masks that cover both your mouth and nose. 

When you are working out there is no way you will not breathe through your mouth and so you have to make sure it’s covered up too to protect yourself.

In terms of how long you can wear your mask, you will find you can get either a disposable mask or a reusable mask. You dispose of disposable masks after wearing them once while reusable masks last for a couple of years with weekly or monthly filter changes depending on how often you use your mask and how high your pollution levels are. 

All these masks I have described so far will only help you stop inhaling particulate matter which only consists of solid airborne pollutant particles. They will not protect you from dangerous airborne gases and vapor. 

For protection against gases and vapor, you will need a gas mask or escape hood. Gas masks and escape hoods are just an enhanced version of your normal mechanical filtration mask. They are more advanced because their filters not only protect you from particulate matter but various common gas, vapor, and volatile organic compound pollution. 

Really high-quality mechanical filtration masks are usually given a rating to indicate their filtration level in terms of pollutant particulate size. To be absolutely sure your masks rating is authentic, it should have a stamp of approval from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). 

NIOSH gives masks that filter out a minimum of 95% of airborne particles a 95 rating. If a mask filters out 99% of particulates it is given a “99” rating and finally, if it filters at least 99.97% it receives a “100” rating.

Mechanical filtration masks are further rated as N, R, or P. The letters indicate the level of protection against oils. Masks are rated like this because some industrial oils can degrade your filter performance so that it doesn’t filter out pollutants properly.

Your respirator is rated “N,” if it is not resistant to oil, “R” if it can somewhat resist airborne oil particulates, and “P” if it is oil Proof. Now if you combine oil resistance with the level of filtration, you end up with nine types of disposable particulate respirators as shown in the table below.

Anti-Pollution Mask Ratings

Rating Oil resistance	Description (> 0.3-micron particles)
N95 Not oil resistant	Filters at least 95% of airborne particles
N99 Not oil resistant	Filters at least 99% of airborne particles
N100 Not oil resistant	Filters at least 99.97% of airborne particles
R95 Oil resistant	Filters at least 95% of airborne particles
R99 Oil resistant	Filters at least 99% of airborne particles
R100 Oil resistant	Filters at least 99.97% of airborne particles
P95 Oilproof	Filters at least 95% of airborne particles
P99 Oilproof	Filters at least 99% of airborne particles
P100 Oilproof	Filters at least 99.97% of airborne particles

 As for gas masks, NIOSH simply labels them Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN), if they can effectively deal with such pollutants.

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Sports Anti-Pollution Mask

Now that you know how anti-pollution masks work let us look at how you can best use them. The most common problem when it comes to masks is how well they fit on your face.

Research shows that most sports masks experience an inward average leak of between 5% – 68%  when you are sedentary and 7%-66% when you are active. 

The reason for this leakage is largely due to your mask fitting poorly on your face. Leakage means though your mask is on, some polluted air still sips through gaps in between your mask and skin and so you are not adequately protected from the bad air.

The trick to minimizing leakage is getting a snug fit mask. When getting a mask also try to get a mask that has multiple sizes and an adjustable nose bridge that allows you to adjust the mask to fit. If you are getting a mask for a child, look for a mask designed for children. 

It is a good idea to also measure your face to know exactly what size mask you should be wearing. RZ Mask and Cambridge Mask provide good guides to find out your mask size and I also found the video below helpful in that regard.

It’s wise to also go in-store and try on masks with different types of straps to see what shape mask fits you well and comfortably. Besides inward leakage, if you don’t get a mask that fits well and you wear glasses or a helmet with a glass windshield, you will find your warm breath fogging up your glass and obstructing your vision.

In addition to getting a tight fit mask, to avoid steam from your breath escaping from your mask and toward your eyes, make sure your mask has an exhale valve. The valve is usually a round-shaped knob that sticks out on the front of your mask. 

When you exhale, the valve lets out your breath in a downward direction and helps keep your vision clear. However, do note that valves won’t really work well for helmets as your whole head is enclosed within the helmet and your breath still won’t flow immediately out of your helmet.

Masks also become a tricky affair if you have an obstructing beard. See the below infographic from the CDC.

Image Source:  https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/pdfs/FacialHairWmask11282017-508.pdf

No mask will snug fit your face if you have a beard. The simple solution is to just shave off your beard. If that is a no go, then the other option is to wear an escape hood. 

An escape hood will work for most sports activities but certainly not all. One escape hood I found on Amazon that will do the trick is the Elmridge iEvac Escape Hood.

As I have shown you earlier, normal antipollution masks largely fail to filter out vapor and gaseous pollution and so cannot protect you from such pollutants. If you need a mask that also deals with gases and vapors, then go for a gas mask instead of the usual particulate mask.

Lastly, people commonly complain about their masks smelling like neoprene. This is no surprise as a lot of masks are made using this material. If you happen to get a mask with an intrusive almost plasticky and hospital like-new smell, that’s the kind of smell I am talking about. 

If the smell does not amuse you at all then simply leave your mask in an open area to let it catch some air and it will go away eventually. The other thing with neoprene, but this is not so common, is that it can irritate your skin. 

Some people are allergic to neoprene, so just in case you are allergic take extra care if you go for a sports antipollution mask made of neoprene.

All in all, if you keep in mind the above steps and follow them as you encounter each of the above issues, your sports anti-pollution mask should work to its maximum protective capacity. 

6 Anti Pollution Masks That Work Well For Sports

There are many anti-pollution masks out there and all sorts of masks are being advertised as suitable for sports. In view of this, you have to be careful when looking for a new mask. 

As much as there are a number of good products available, this industry is filled with a lot of dodgy and misleading advertising with fictitious product claims.

To help you cut through the nonsense, I decided to do some in-depth research to find the masks that actually work and below are 5 masks I found worth considering for sports. A good sports mask needs to fit well on your face, it also has to be easy to move around with, especially for high-intensity movements and it must be as comfortable as possible.

1. RZ Dust/Pollution Mask w/2 Laboratory Tested Filters, Model M1, Splat, 

The RZ Mask is an awesome mask designed with outdoor sports players in mind. You can use this anti-pollution mask for activities as intense as dirt-biking and football and more relaxed activities like hunting. 

The mask is great for cold-weather as well and will keep your respiratory system safe from dust, pollen, and odors. It has an activated carbon filter that absorbs some dangerous gases, vapors, and odors and a particulate filter that keeps most particulate pollutants at bay and these are all approved to be of the good standard by Nelson Laboratories.

The mask is made of tough-duty and durable neoprene and has two exhale valves that significantly cut condensation and reduce fogging within your mask and around your face. It also has an adjustable nose clip to help you make it snug fit and further prevent fogging around your face.

The mask comes with an easily adjustable velcro strap for easier fit across various head shapes and has sizes ranging from Small to XL and it also fits comfortably in your helmet. You can check out the RZ MASK at Amazon here.

2. Respro Nitesight Mask

Another brand of anti-pollution masks worth considering for sports is Respro. They have a variety of masks but one that particularly caught my attention was the Respro Nitesight Mask. 

The mask is very similar to the RZ Mask with velcro straps and an activated carbon cloth filter. It filters out particulates including dust, exhaust emissions, and pollen and will also deal with some volatile organic compounds and certain gases. 

That said it is different in that it has an interesting glow in the dark feature. Respro calls it Scotchlite. The Respro Nitesight Mask is made of a glow in the dark material which makes you more visible at night and in low-light conditions during the day. 

I think this is great for sporting activities like night mountain biking or hiking or during winter when the sun doesn’t shine so bright. The mask also has an exhale valve and adjustable nose clip to aide with mask condensation and fogging. Have a look at the Respro Mask at Amazon here.

3. BASE CAMP Activated Carbon  Dust Mask

Unlike the Respro and RZ masks, the Base Camp anti-pollution mask is made of nylon which gives it extra permeability and makes it easier to breathe. The permeability of the material also makes the mask cooler and more comfortable in warm weather. Its straps are also different in that they are an adjustable loop that hangs around your ears. 

This strap design in addition to the adjustable nose clip gives you extra flexibility when it comes to getting your mask to snug fit your face. Like the Respro and RZ mask, the mask also features exhale valves to deter condensation and fogging. 

The base camp mask’s particulate filters are rated N99 and it also comes with an activated carbon filter for extra protection against exhaust fumes, volatile organic compounds, and various other pollutant vapors and gases. All the mask’s filters are replaceable and the mask’s shell and valves can be washed when they get dirty.

This mask will work well for all outdoor sports activities. I particularly like the Base Camp range of masks because they stand 100% by their product and promise a full refund if you are not happy with your mask for any reason and want to return it. The Base Camp Mask is available here at Amazon.

4. FIGHTECH Dust Mask 

The Fightech Dust Mask is very similar to the Base Camp Mask featuring the same earloop strap design. The mask also comes with activated carbon filters and its particulate filter is rated N99. 

The mask will protect you from most particulate matter including exhaust fumes, industrial emissions, and airborne bacteria among other pollutants.

The mask is unique in that it’s made of elastic material which allows it to be adjusted to a snug fit around a wider range of head shapes. Besides the filters, you can also replace not the mask’s exhale valves.

The Fightech mask doubles as an elevation training mask for anyone who would like both the benefit of low oxygen/high altitude training and breathing clean air while doing outdoor sports. Fightech also promises you a full refund if you are not satisfied with their mask. The Fightech Mask is available at Amazon here.

5. U-Mask

The U-Mask is not your typical mask. The mask leverages biotechnology to protect you from air pollution. The beauty of this mask is that it does not even have to be snug fit to protect you. The mask has been tested by European lab standards and proven to protect you better than masks that are rated N99.

As you inhale and exhale the mask attracts air contaminants using a process called molecular charge attraction onto its surface and destroys them using a special biofiltration layer that contains some biodegrading enzymes.

The technology is natural and harmless to humans and the mask will protect you for anywhere between 150-200 hours of continuous usage. 

Its shell is made of eco-friendly nylon and besides the biofiltration layer, it also has a nanofiltration layer for capturing inorganic pollutants before they reach your air passage. Take a look at the U-Mask for yourself on their website.

6. MIRA SAFETY Gas Mask

If you live in a super polluted city or if you are super sensitive to air pollution, the best level of protection you can get beyond the half mask anti-pollution masks I have shown so far is from a gas mask. 

I struggled to find a good gas mask as they are not really designed for sports but eventually I came across MIRA Safety’s masks. These masks are used by national armies and police forces and accordingly are designed for versatility. 

Unfortunately, these gas masks won’t work well if you have to wear a full face or motocross type helmet and you will have to resort to an open face or half face helmet. However, they should be ok for most other sports. 

The mask is made of bromobutyl rubber. It will protect you from all particulate matter and a wide range of harmful and highly toxic airborne substances including all known CBRN agents. Any of the MIRA Safety Mask will work and you can choose as per your need. Check out the MIRA Masks here on their website.

Final Thoughts About Anti-Pollution Masks For Sports

Other things you should keep in mind when you have finally decided to get a pollution mask include scheduling your workouts to times when your outdoor pollution is not so bad and getting a medical check-up to make sure you are fit enough to work out with a mask on.

In many cities around the world, pollution levels tend to get worse in the colder months as more coal is used for energy. So I think it’s wise to move your sports activities indoors during winter where possible. 

If you have to be outdoors, avoid jogging during rush hour traffic. Doing so will wear out your mask faster as there are a lot more pollutants in the air with all the traffic pollution. The first choice is to get busy before all the traffic but if you cannot, try to work out at least an hour after traffic dies down.

You can also get an air quality monitoring device or use an air quality monitoring website to know exactly when the air quality in your city is at its worst and best so you can plan your outdoor sports activities accordingly.

One other thing you should avoid is getting your mask wet. Avoid going out in the rain or water sports whether you are using a gas mask or normal anti-pollution mask. Water will mess up your mask’s filtration system.

As for getting a medical check-up, breathing in a sports mask takes some getting used to and you may find yourself struggling. This is why it’s important to consult with your doctor before getting a mask, especially if you have any breathing problems.

Anti-pollution masks can make breathing trickier and it’s not a good idea to wear one for sports if you already battle with breathing. So make sure to get some breathing and lung tests done to make sure  your lungs are fit enough for a filtered mask.

With that said, and if you have gone over this whole post, you now have the knowledge you need to get a decent sports anti-pollution mask and ensure you get the most out of your mask as you workout. Let me know below if you have any questions.