Patent ID: 7836887

Claim:
A personalized protective mask conforming to an individual's face contour for either wearing over the face in an in-use mode for comfortably and effectively inhibiting the inhalation of airborne contaminates or wearing around the neck in a stand-by mode for quickly positioning over the face, said protective mask comprising: (a) a continuous malleable wire frame having an inverted U-shaped nose section for sitting on the individual's nose bridge, a right cheek section and a left cheek section, each said cheek section extending substantially horizontally from the nose section, a right ear section extending from the right cheek section, and a left ear section extending from the left cheek section, each said ear section shaped for fitting over a top of one of the individual's ears, and wherein said nose section, right cheek section, left cheek section, right ear section and left ear section is each individually bendable; (b) a filtration bag positioned on the malleable wire frame, said filtration bag sized to cover the individual's nose and mouth; and (c) a tether having a length to extend around the individual's head backside and having two terminuses with one terminus attached to one ear section and the other terminus attached to the other ear section for drawing the wire frame towards the individual's ears, whereby the individual personalizes the protective mask by manually bending the sections of the malleable frame to conform to the individual's nose bridge and cheek bones to closely follow the contour of the user's face and then tightening the tether for a substantially air-tight fit of the malleable frame and filtration bag over the individual's nose and mouth for preventing the inhalation of the airborne contaminates by the individual.