Goggle fog appears when the moisture around your face cannot escape or evaporate. That’s why breathability is so important in outdoor gear. With proper ventilation, hot and cold air can move freely to wick away moisture from your body and allow it to escape before it condenses.

How to Prevent Foggy Goggles

Cold weather outerwear has a lot of moving parts so many different things could cause your goggles to fog. It’s tough to improve the situation once your goggles have started fogging, so it’s best to prevent it from happening in the first place. Luckily, this can usually be achieved with a few minor changes and adjustments to your gear.

Here are some common strategies to keep your goggles from fogging.

Goggle Tech

Your first line of defense against fogging issues is a good pair of ski/snowboard goggles. Goggles at most price points now include tech to combat fog, like anti-fog coatings, ventilation, and breathable face foam.

Choose a Quality Pair of Goggles

Many goggles feature double-layer lenses (aka dual lenses) with an anti-fog coating on the inside. These lenses act like a dual-pane window. Sandwiched together, they create a thermal barrier that reduces fogging significantly. Double lenses are common, if not standard, on all new ski and snowboard goggles.

Anti-fog coatings are different from the hydrophobic outer coatings that you can squeegee with that fancy goggle wipe on your gloves. Instead of repelling moisture, they absorb it. Although some coatings are more durable than others, all of them are easily damaged by contact with fabric or fingers. For this reason, and as we mentioned earlier, it is strongly recommended that you DO NOT wipe the inside of your goggles, even when you’re experiencing fog.

Ventilation is also an important anti-fog variable. Vents located on the top or bottom of goggles, between the lens and the protective face foam, allow air to circulate freely. Warm air from your face can exit up and into your helmet, where it escapes through helmet vents into the air. The face foam used on ski/snowboard goggles is great, allowing subtle breathability and wicking to pull moisture away from your face and help regulate temperature.

Goggle Care

It’s extremely important to resist wiping the inner lens of your goggles when they’re dirty, filled with snow, or already foggy. Wiping the inside of your lens will scratch or smudge the protective anti-fog coating and make your goggles more susceptible to fogging in the future. It’s just like defrost mode in your car. Fingerprints on the windshield = bad. To keep your lenses in optimal condition, the best thing to do is to allow the inner lens to dry out naturally. Always use a clean microfiber towel if you must wipe any part of your goggles.

Post-Ride Drying and Storage

Stuffing wet/snowy goggles in a backpack or duffle bag and hoping that they’ll be dry by the next time you unearth them is a recipe for fogging. Instead, always store your goggles in a warm, dry place when not in use, and make sure they’ve thoroughly dried out before putting them back in their microfiber storage case. Leftover moisture isn’t good for the longevity of your gear and will also smell and feel gross the next time you ride.

When it comes to drying out your goggles, it is also discouraged to place them directly over a heat vent, hold them too close to a blow dryer, or hang them particularly close to a fireplace. High degrees of heat can be detrimental to the anti-fog treatment.

Avoid Keeping Goggles on Your Helmet Too Long

Putting your goggles on your helmet for long periods exposes your goggles’ inner lens to cold air, making them more prone to fogging once you put them back on your face to start riding again. If you must put them up on your forehead, try to keep it short and sweet unless you’re in the lodge.

Breathability & Ventilation

Shedding excess layers is the easiest way to prevent goggle fogging without changing any of the gear you already own. Unzipping vents or taking off your balaclava can help prevent overheating, which may be enough to balance the temperature differential and eliminate your foggy goggle issues. Improving airflow between your body and your gear is crucial to your overall experience and the state of your goggles.

Keep Clear Vents of Snow

Yeah, getting faceshots in blower pow is great, but so is taking a breather afterward to knock snow out of the nooks and crannies. Left unchecked, that blower pow caked around your goggles will melt and seep into the foam, eventually causing some serious goggle fog.

If de-clogging your vents to prevent fog isn’t enough motivation, think about the feeling of cold, moist drips of snow melting directly into your face…

Pair With a Well Ventilated Helmet

Vents are standard on most ski and snowboard helmets and help increase airflow from goggles. Pairing your goggles with a well-ventilated helmet can help keep air moving away from your face and out of your gogs. Not only that, many companies design their helmet and goggle vents to line up seamlessly, working in tandem to pull warm, moist air away from your goggles. If you want the best possible ventilation, pairing your goggles with a helmet from the same manufacturer can boost performance.

You might also benefit from a helmet with a visor, as it directs the snow away from the vents in your goggles. Remember, snowy goggles are the enemy