The N95 respirator isn’t perfect. It isn’t designed to seal well to the face of children or those with facial hair, and if it doesn’t seal, it doesn’t work as advertised.

Bearded person here (facial hair). The best sealing respirator I’ve found is the GVS Elipse. (seals well enough that if I block ports, I can make my ears pop). It’s P100, so filters out more airborne particles than N95 masks. The ‘P’ means filter efficiency not degraded by oil mist — which doesn’t matter to me.

They’re fairly easy breathing, and no canisters to bump on things and obstruct vision. I have a couple of friends who used them to bicycle through the smoke/smog created by all those wildfires out west. I got one to deal with the big cloud of dust I’m often in when mowing on our tractor. I used to get black patches on my handkerchief (most delicate way I can put it). Now I don’t.

A respirator is worn out when it gets hard to breathe. The filters on mine are black from dust, but I don’t notice much difference in inhale resistance after a summer’s use. (We’re more sensitive to inhale than to exhale resistance — ask any SCUBA diver who’s used both two-hose and one-hose regulators).

I’m not much of a hoarder, but when I heard there’d be a N95 mask shortage I ordered a replacement filter set (about US$12–20). BTW, if you’re wondering about the color scheme, NIOSH requires P100 filters be magenta for easy identification.