Cincinnati-based Sweaty Bands makes popular no-slip headbands. Now in a COVID-19 world it's making fashionable masks.

Doug Browning's Cincinnati-based Sweaty Bands company is known for its no-slip activewear headbands, but as the world responds to the new coronavirus pandemic he's changing what his company does too.

Browning is taking the materials – elastic and fabric – that once ended up as headbands and turning them into face masks instead.

Some of the masks are already flowing to hospitals close to the Tennessee factory where they're being produced, but Browning believes the same people who buy Sweaty Bands will want to buy masks – for themselves, their husbands and their kids.

The masks aren't medical-grade, but they will be reusable, washable – and well, if you like Sweaty Bands – just as cute. The company, whose offices are in suburban Fairfax, plans to start selling them as soon as today.

"The virus is moving so fast, you just have to roll," Browning said. "We quickly decided to do our part to try to keep Americans safe and help flatten this curve. Although these can't be worn on the front line by those incredibly brave and courageous Americans, they will offer protection to the general public."

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Browning said he's thinking about what his customers want and how to keep his small company afloat.

He has eight employees. He's not alone in re-thinking how business is done. Restaurants once focused on dining room experience are now doing carry out. Distillers are making hand sanitizer.

Browning is morphing the business at warp speed. He barely saw the first masks before they started rolling off the production line. Prototypes were over-nighted to him for approval.

There won't be glossy, Instagram-worthy photos. This is about quickly producing a product people want and need, Browning said.

From a basement business to big business

Browning founded the company, along with his wife Donna, back in 2007 in their Linwood home basement.

Donna Browning was locally famous for her fitness classes. And she taught them wearing a no-slip headband she created to keep her long hair out of her face. So many people asked where they could get one, the Brownings knew it was time to start a business.

At first an army of seamstresses would pick up the materials from the Browning's home, sew the headbands at home, and then bring them back.

It grew into mass production that at one point served as many as 900 national retail stores and fitness expos all over the world.

Volleyball star Gabby Reece and soccer player Heather Mitts wore them.

Over time, the business became primarily online-based.

From headbands to mask maker

As the new coronavirus spread, the same seamstresses that once that helped build Sweaty Bands approached Browning about whether they could use the companies' materials to make masks.

That wasn't going to work because the materials are in Tennessee, but it got Browning thinking. His customers were going to want masks.

Yes, he wants to help the medical profession. But these masks are being made from what he had on-hand; they're not the recommended N95 masks health care professionals need.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends specially protected masks for health care providers, but because there aren't enough nationwide says fabric masks will do in a pinch. However, it's unknown just how much protection they offer.

Browning believes his customers will still want masks. And, they'll want them to look good.

On Monday, the Huffington Post noted in a story that Zuzana Čaputová, the president of Slovakia, wore an outfit-matching pink mask to a swearing-in ceremony.

Sweaty Band masks are one size fits all. The $17.99 masks come in solid black and solid pink, plus four patterns.