During the coronavirus pandemic, wearing a facemask has pretty much become the new normal when getting out of the house (as it should be, since masks can reduce the risk of infection according to current CDC guidelines, literally helping save lives). 

You don’t have to go with the plain old hospital-issue variety though, as many artists, designers, and celebrities have come up with their own designs to help slow the spread of the virus, including Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Blackpink, and The Weeknd.

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has also raised over $1 million for charity, with a sale of masks featuring his most iconic artworks.

Still, you might find it pretty weird having a conversation when you can’t see the other person’s face, so one company has created another design that offers a solution (kind of).

Named Maskalike, the company – founded in San Francisco by Danielle Baskin – sells a range of facemasks that can be customised with your own design, most notably selfies, which are used to replace the lower half of your face with… a picture of the lower half of your face.

The “selfie” masks have received a mixed reaction on social media, branded a work of genius, dystopian, and just plain creepy (tbh it’s hard to deny that they have an uncanny vibe about them).

Besides selfies, the masks can also be designed to feature someone else’s face, with one pre-made (and already sold-out) version depicting the familiar mouth, moustache, and chin of the Hide The Pain Harold meme. No less creepy, obviously, but if it encourages people to wear a mask then you’ll hear no complaints from us.

View more of Maskalike’s designs below.

Recently, another mask innovation came in the wake of coronavirus, with a Japanese startup developing the “c-mask”, which doubles as a way to translate your conversations into nine different languages.