A Japanese artist has made 3D ramen face masks for people with eyeglasses to make their “fogging” problem a little less pesky.
As it’s not necessarily easy to make one’s glasses fog-free while wearing a mask, Takahiro Shibata decided to just make an illusion out of it.
“The more cloudy your glasses are, the hotter you can see the ramen. Ease of use, no better than this,” read a direct translation of Shibata’s tweet written in Japanese.
Shibata, who wears glasses himself, said he originally wanted to make a fog-free mask, but unfortunately can’t come up with ideas.
“I wonder if I can accept the fog on my glasses and find value in it?” he told South China Morning Post in an interview.
Shibata used felt cloth for the ramen bowl and clay for the ingredients which include bamboo shoots, chashu (pork belly), aonegi (green onion), narutomaki (fish cake), and menma (bamboo shoots).
Shibata said that while the mask is quite “useless,” in terms of preventing glasses from fogging up, he’s happy knowing that his creation is making people smile.
“I create works hoping I can get people around me to smile just a little bit,” he said.
The Japanese artist said he is also planning to make variations of the mask featuring a “range of bowl” which can be found in Japan.
Shibata first posted about his ramen face mask on Twitter on July 13. As of this writing, his post has received over 250,000 likes.
Aside from the ramen mask, Shibata has also created a variety of goods with out of the box designs like brooches, mask cases, and key chains.