I don't like the kind of plain papery dust mask that covers my mouth and nose. It gets clammy inside the mask pretty quickly. It also seems to force the exhaled air up under the safety glasses, which makes the glasses fog up. If I'm working in my garage on a cold day, that makes me choose between the mask or the safety goggles. Hmmm. Would I rather lose my eye or cough a little? I'd rather cough a little, but I don't really like those as the only two options.

3M makes a variation on the plain papery mask that has a little flapper valve in the front that opens when you exhale. It's a dollar or two more than the plain version, but I found that it didn't get anywhere near as clammy, and after trying it, I doubt that I'll ever use the clammy kind again.

For the final stage of my project, I was applying stain and polyurethane in an enclosed space. I had all the windows in my basement wide open, and two 20" fans blowing the air into the media room and around inside the media room, but there were still some pretty strong fumes in the media room. The AO Safety respirator, which cost about $25, worked incredibly well. With the respirator on, I couldn't smell the fumes at all. It was actually kind of spooky to be breathing clean-smelling air with the respirator on, loosen it a little bit, and get an overwhelming hit of fumes. There's no clammy feeling whatsoever with the respirator, and I found the fitting over my mouth and nose to be comfortable. It is a little heavy (certainly heavier than the paper masks), but I wore it for 2-3 hours at a time and the weight really wasn't much of an issue. .