Whether it’s your eye-pro or the glasses you’re wearing under goggles, fogging is one of the quickest ways to take an airsofter out of the fight, turning the local woodland into a misty horror like something out of a Silent Hill game.
If you’ve been struggling with the fog, the best thing is to try and work out why you’re fogging up, and then working to combat that. If that doesn’t work, of course, there’s always a few nuclear options for keeping you clear-eyed and on the frontline all day.
Why do airsoft goggles fog up?
Fogging is a scientific eventuality. Stupid science. When water vapour from your breath or sweaty forehead hits your lenses, they’ll cool down and switch from a warm vapour to a cooler liquid. This liquid will coat the inside of your lenses, and voila, you’re in trouble.
There are a few things that can make that even more of a pain. You can’t do much about these, but it’s important to highlight some triggers that could make this problem much worse.
- Exercise makes you sweat: Bounding from cover to cover, clearing rooms or sprinting across the woodland will cause you to heat up and sweat. This generates a lot of extra moisture and sweat which is bad news.
- Full seal eye-wear: If your goggles are flush to your head, there will be less air-flow, making it difficult to keep your vision clear. However, this can also keep sweat and crap from your forehead from getting into your eyes, so it’s a mixed bag.
- Humidity, the vision killer: If there’s more moisture in the air, your glasses are more likely to fog. Running around on a humid day will mess with you.
- The weather: The temperature of the environment around you is going to massively impact how foggy you get.
Don’t take off your eye pro!
No matter how foggy things get, don’t take off your eye protection. The only serious injury you can pick up in airsoft just from playing is losing an eye to a beeb hit.
It’s the one thing you really shouldn’t mess about with and as a result, no matter how bad the fogging gets, don’t take off your eye protection.
In an absolute emergency, there are a couple of things you can do. I wouldn’t recommend this, but they are safer than taking your glasses off for a clean in the middle of a shoot.
- Pull your mesh mask over your eyes and then remove your glasses, meaning you still have a layer over your eyes.
- Crouch down, face the ground and pass your goggles to a teammate to clean while you put your hands directly over your eyes. Keep these in place until your goggles are handed back to you.
- Use your index fingers to clean the inside of your glasses. This is a temporary solution and won’t work if you have crap on your hands or gloves.
Again, my hard ruling is not to do any of these and to wear your goggles at all times no matter how foggy it gets, but if you’re going to ignore my advice, I’d rather you minimised your risk of losing your vision.
1. Buy some anti-fog (or make do with a household item)
If you’re still having trouble, the single most effective thing you can buy is some anti-fog. Your mileage may vary, so be prepared to tinker until you find what works for you and your eye-pro.
These anti-fog products come in a variety of forms: bio-gels, markers, wipes and even markers that promise to stop fog forever.
Personally, I swear by FogStop. It’s a little tiny 5ml tub that lasts just about forever. To use it, you take a tiny amount on your finger, then rub the product between your finger and thumb and slap it onto your lenses.
Click the above link or use the code BadNade to cut 10% off of your order, although I get store credit whenever people use the link so you would be indirectly helping me to get more FogStop by buying. How you feel about that is up to you.
The negative is that it’s quite difficult to get your hands on, and often has a long lead time which means you need to order well in advance of running out.
To use Fog Stop take a small amount on your finger, then rub the product between finger and thumb. Massage on to the lenses of glasses/goggles. Then simply polish off with a microfibre cloth, tissue or similar.
I also carry a little cleaning kit in my rig for lending to teammates or cleaning the lenses of my glasses. This is the Bolle kit, but I imagine many kits are similar, but for £9 and fairly dependable performance, I haven’t bothered to look for anything else.
Several people I play with also recommend the Revision Anti-Fog Cloth. These are currently issued to UK and US military and seem to do the trick, although I found that didn’t pan out for me.
If you’re reading this the day before a game, or you’ve run out and won’t be able to get more before slinging plastic, there are some DIY solutions available.
A little dish soap mixed with water and applied to the inside and outside of your goggles with a soft sponge can do the trick, although you will need to dry it properly. Washing up liquid and baby shampoo will both do the same, but all three of these products share the same issue, you’re not likely to have them on the field with you.
Your own spit will often work in a pinch, although it’s a little gross, and really if the alternative is spitting on the glasses you’re going to be wearing all day and buying a cleaning kit, I know what I’d choose.
2. Buy glasses that won’t fog up
I know, silly title: “just buy something that doesn’t fog” as if it’s that simple.
But there are a few pieces of eye protection that have gotten a reputation for not fogging up.
For the longest time, I’ve sworn by simple metal-framed Bolle glasses. However I’ve recently made the jump across to Edge Tactical glasses, which have “vapour shield”, which I’m clueless on, but they really do seem to handle themselves well, and I don’t notice any issues.
I use the FastLink glasses in Tiger’s Eye and clear, and I’m happy with them. I’ve just bought the Acid Gambit glasses. The FastLink glasses don’t seem to steam up, even held over a kettle. While I occasionally get issues with my sweat getting on the inside, generally the performance is better than anything I’ve encountered elsewhere.
Elsewhere, several people I play with swear by the ultra-ventilated Bolle X800 goggles. I have a pair myself but don’t like full-seal eye protection because I don’t like too much clinging to my face. They’re an expensive option, but as fogging can ruin your day, it could be an option if nothing else seems to work.
3. “Parrot breathing”
This advice will sound silly but someone from my first ever site, KGB Airsoft, once told me to avoid fogging up by “parrot breathing”. It will sound silly, but it’s worked for me.
Basically, you bring your top lip forwards and breath downwards. This keeps your breath away from your glasses and in theory will stop it from fogging up.
This works nicely when you’re moving slow and steady but this won’t help you when you’re moving fast and sweating a bunch. If you can remember to do this in combat, you’re better than me.
4. Cover your forehead
So, one of the biggest problems is sweat and forehead grime getting over your lenses. This one is quick and simple: whether you use a sweatband, baseball cap or even a balaclava, anything that wicks sweat will give you fewer issues with your lenses.
5. Let your eye-pro adjust
A special tip from BadNade pal The English Rambo, and it’s a good one.
Put your eye-pro on from the second you hop out of your car at the game, and even earlier if you can manage it. This will allow the eye protection to adjust to your body temperature and that should result in less fog on your lenses.
This might not work out on a boiling hot day, but a lot of the time this will help, especially if you pair it with an anti-fog product. This costs nothing to try, so why not have a go and see if it works for you. It’s free, after all.
6. Buy mesh goggles
One way to sidestep the fogging issue is to go mesh.
There are positives and negatives to this approach. Don’t listen to what other players say, but make your own mind about whether they might work for you.
On the plus side, by ditching the plastic lens you’ll never fog up. No matter how much humidity you’ve got, this
There are negatives: they look worse in photos, for a start. However, more realistically mesh masks have a reputation for cheap BBs shattering against them, getting shards of plastic in your eyes.
This is not the case. However, beeb impacts can occasionally cause the paint on cheaper models of mesh to shed paint. These flecks of paint can still irritate your eyes, which is less than ideal.
I’ve also encountered issues with the kill flash on my Vortex Crossfire while wearing mesh, with the two mesh surfaces making it hard to see what is what.
You can avoid the paint flaking issue by buying a decent set of goggles. Most people swear by Heroshark, who does some great mesh goggles, although they are made to order and can take a little while to arrive. My emergency mesh goggles are by Nuprol, and I’ve encountered no issues, even with up-close BB impacts.
If you run hot and you can’t deal with fogging with any of the tips above, save yourself the hassle and pick up a decent pair of mesh goggles. Remember that if you’re also wearing a lower mesh you’ll need to make sure the two pieces fit well together.
