The first four posts in this thread pretty much detailed all the steps I was taught. I never fog up on dives.
1. We thoroughly toothpaste-ed our masks after originally taking them out of the box. Minty fresh scent. PASTE, that is. If you use *gel* toothpaste, you will probably not have a satisfactory result.
2. Cheap spray bottle filled with 25% baby shampoo and 75% water. A couple squirts in the mask, a
quick dunk, and slap it on the face and you're good to go. I prefer to rinse it only enough that I'm not diving with bubbles. I like there to be some baby shampoo still in the mask if I can. As it's baby shampoo, it doesn't sting the eyes, and if you get it on the skirt you can slide your mask around to seat it better on your face.
3. For fogging during the dive, obviously swishing around a small puddle of water. I'd often wondered if there would be a way to reapply defog underwater
and the licking trick sounds perfect. I'm
really excited to hear about that one.
4. While spitting in the mask works and works well, this is
not something you should do if you're going to use the
same mask rinse bucket as everyone else afterward. Not everyone wants to wear your slobber. Maybe some do but you can get with them after the dive or something... Rinse it while in the water, or pour water from a hose or the rinse bucket into your mask and dump it overboard.
No dunking spit in the bucket.
5. Learn not to breathe out through your nose if this is something you do a lot of. It's fine for equalizing and clearing the mask, but if you do it a lot you'll introduce lots of warm, moist air into the mask.
6. A good fit on the mask skirt so you don't have to clear leaks that often. Although for some reason, I can dive with no leaks at all on one dive and practically flood on another dive. I think my head distorts with depth
