Chennai

Worried about having to hide behind a mask and not being recognized by friends and colleagues? The latest offering that has sprung up in the market during the COVID-19 crisis are printed face masks. What’s more? They’re printed with our faces on them. They’re said to be the first of its kind as well. 

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We’ve seen masks with pictures of movie stars, emoticons and pop-culture references, its these unique masks that partly-inspired the new kind of masks that are being made by a chain of studios in Kochi and Kottayam districts of Kerala. 

“We own a photo studio and have been doing sublimation printing that is a process to print faces and other pictures on gift items such as mugs, pens, T-shirts are keychains, so we thought why not print on a cloth mask ?” Mithra Baven, partner Bavens told WION. 

It's barely been a handful of days since the studio started printing these customized masks and the viral trend has brought them orders from as far as Delhi and Pune. The printing is done on two-layered cloth masks and are also said to be washable.

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“The process for printing a mask takes barely 20 minutes, this includes the time to process the photo and get it printed. Customers can either send us a high-quality full frontal selfie or come here and get a professional studio picture clicked and have it printed. Right now these masks are priced at 50.Rs and we’re even sending them by courier” Mithra added.