You will not believe how scuba mask defog is made!

Every diver knows of this supremely pesky issue: a fogged up mask. If you have that problem, you won’t see any of the many beautiful fish and corals on the reef, but struggle with obstructed vision, causing you to not see any marine life and maybe even hit your head on a jetty pylon or coral bommie. Since Cousteau’s time, divers have known two methods to combat the irritation of a mask fogging up: either spitting into the mask and rubbing the spit in, followed by a quick rinse with seawater. Or, applying any of a number of mask defogging products, also followed by a quick rinse. Usually divers opt for the latter option, since it’s less yucky and the composition of spit varies depending on the hydration state of the diver.

Recent investigative reporting by Pacificklaus Media, however, has revealed that the difference between the “spit” and the “defogging product” methods is less than most divers would imagine. Where do the – rather cheaply priced – defogging gels come from? What do they contain? When asked about the secret ingredient in these products, detergent chemist Prof. Winfried Smith-Johnston from the Technical of University of Nelson Bay failed to give a convincing answer. “Nobody has yet come up with a detergent which is better suited to prevent moisture build-up on glass than the cocktail of substances contained in spit.” Prof. Smith-Johnston stated.

During a fact-finding mission to some of the most remote islands of Burma, the Pacificklaus investigative team found what many divers have suspected for years: that the secret ingredient of scuba-mask “defogging products” is in fact spit. It’s spit, spit out by dried-out looking sweatshop (spitshop) workers in 10 hours shifts, then concentrated in steel pots over small flames, and bottled in small plastic containers to be shipped off to the world’s diving destinations. The island people living off the Burmese coast have evolved, through millennia of free-diving for the sake of spear-fishing, a particularly effective defogging saliva. What had served them well while living off the ocean for many generations has now become a burden, leading to their exploitation by the mask-defog industry.

We say: halt this abuse! First world scuba divers, do your own spitting!

And by the way: Out now, and funny: