With these current recommendations to wear a cloth face mask from the Surgeon General and The CDC, many people are asking how they might be able to wash and sterilize those masks. The answer is pretty basic, you treat your face mask with the same type of standards you use in hand washing, the two most important ingredients here are hot water soap. Soap and hot water cause the fibers on the fabric to expand and release the trapped dirt and bacteria. There are also some great things that you can further use to really sterilize laundry very thoroughly that are too strong to be applied to the skin, such as bleach and hydrogen peroxide, both work extremely well on laundry. I found an excellent video by Billittes Baubles Eco Alternatives on Youtube where she guides you step by step through a basic washing/ sterilizing process she uses on her hand made face masks.
In the video, you will be guided step by step to wash your cloth face masks in a bowl with hot water, a squirt of soap, and a capful of bleach.
Then you will wash the mask out under hot running water rinsing over and over with squeezing to get the soap and bleach are completely removed from the fabric.
I’m so glad I found this helpful video, I hope it can help others.