For those of you who have no qualms wearing newly-bought clothes from the store without washing them first, you should think twice about extending this habit to your reusable masks.

A message making the rounds on Facebook has called on Singaporeans to take some time to wash and dry their free government-issued reusable masks before putting them on your face for the first time.

The image, as seen above, is self-explanatory.

The colour apparently runs after the reusable mask is washed.

The message accompanying the image said:

I thank the Govt for handing out free face masks for every citizen. But whichever supplier who supplied the masks really cut corners if our Govt had to pay for it. The dyed fabric did not go through another round of washing before sewing them in mask. Fellow Singaporeans please wash the mask and dry it before wearing.

The colour in dyed fabric running is a common enough phenomenon, as those who have hand-rinsed clothing before can attest.

Not rinsing out new apparel most of the time doesn't cause much problems for wearers.

But dyes are water soluble and perspiration from the body can have the same effect, which leads to leaching out of the dye, and can cause irritations.

Washing apparel first before putting them on also ensures tip top hygiene standards, especially if the product was manufactured in a factory in some other part of the world you can barely locate on the map.

Different types of masks

Do note that not everyone in Singapore receives the same type of masks.

Some estates in Singapore have been supplied another design, such as this, among others:

Background

The Singapore government has started handing out free reusable masks to all Singapore residents.

Each Singapore resident with a household address will be able to collect one reusable mask.

These reusable masks ought to be washed and dried properly after use.

The collection will last from April 5 to 12.

Collection on weekdays will start at 3pm.

For weekends and public holidays, the collection will be from 10am to 9pm.

All residents can collect the mask from the Community Centres (CCs) and Residents' Committees (RCs) similar to the previous round of masks collection.

Families can collect masks on behalf of their members by bringing along their identification cards or documents.

Singaporeans can check which CCs or RCs to go to via government website maskgowhere.gov.sg.

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