Are full face SCUBA masks comfortable to wear?

First, look at my picture. See my picture? That's me and my wife (I'm the husband on here now, bored) and we were scuba diving the Sea Tiger wreck in Hawaii. I'm a certified rescue diver, advanced scuba diver, and also a cave diver. I also make like $190,000 a year and a much higher than avg IQ. So in other words... I'm qualified, knowledgeable on the subject, and smart, so you should listen to me for your own benefit.

(Note: I agree with you, it's annoying when someone drops their certification or degree to try to sound right. My advice isn't automatically right because of my certifications, training and knowledge. However, I assure you, what I'm recommending IS right because of scuba diving science. I'm just saving you the trouble of doing extensive research to find this out for yourself.)

To answer your question "Are full face SCUBA masks comfortable to wear", I have to say:

The short answer is "THEY ARE NOT SAFE AND 99% OF DIVING AGENCIES DO NOT LET YOU DIVE WITH THEM, SO NO". I apologize well in advance for the 2 people giving you advice that hints "yes they are good", because those people are not qualified and really shouldn't be answering a question like this.

The long and important answer is- Before deciding if something is comfortable to wear, you first have to figure out if it is going to even be functional and safe. Especially when scuba diving.

For example, it might be "comfortable" to not bring 3 flashlights with you cave diving, cuz its bulky. But the reason you bring 3 lights with you when cave diving is, lights sometimes go out underwater, and if 1 or 2 goes out and you only have 1 or 2.... Well.... 90% of the time, unless you get extremely lucky finding your way out blind, you are going to die. Even with the line reel, you might bump into a rock and knock yourself out, or lose your reg hitting it on something that you can't see.... etc. This is why you need 3 primary lights (and also 2 to 3 backup lights, lol). These are the numbers they give you that give you a less than 1 in 100,000 odds of all of your lights going out, based on available data for modern-day scuba light failure statistics. With only 1 or 2 lights, you have really bad odds, like less than 1 in 500 that you could die.

Similarly, it might be "comfortable" to not even bring a tank down at all! I mean, those things are annoying, am I right? They're hard, and if you lean back too far, you can even hit the back of your head on them. (Usually this means its sitting up too high on your back, but hey.) However, wanna know what the problem is with diving without a tank? You have no air.. So, you kind of die, or you will be doing a shallow dive shorter than 2 minutes if you hold your breath really good, lol.

Same thing goes with full face masks. It isn't even RELEVANT if they are comfortable or not, because the unfortunate fact of the matter is, they are fundamentally unsafe to wear while diving. If you ever do a certified diving course with any certified diving agency, or even just a casual boat dive with a certified divemaster on board, they are NOT gonna let you go down with a full face mask 99% of the time, unless you like threatened them with a 1 star review and were very aggressive about using it. Usually, they will assertively and authoritatively take the damn thing off your head and tell you to get a new mask, or that you can't do the dive. They would offer you a refund, obviously, unless they're d*cks, but the fact remains, they would not want you diving with one of those. How do I know? It happened one time when we were on a boat in Florida. Somebody was trying to dive with one of those dive masks, and the divemaster told them to buy a new mask at the shop because their current one wasn't good. Luckily, it was before the boat took off so they ran and bought a correct one.

Anyway- you're probably wondering WHY are full face masks dangerous? Let me list the reasons.

1) PADI, TDI, SSI, and all diving agencies say that you need to have an independent breathing source that cannot become flooded without an easy way of purging. ("Purging" means removing excess air via mechanical means.) A full face mask can create severe issues if they leak, because they are very hard to clear. Watch this video. Notice that while "clearing", HE HAS TO HOLD HIS BREATH AND HE HAS NO ACCESS TO AIR. THIS IS A BIG ******* PROBLEM. Yes, he can grab for his octopus aka secondary air source (assuming it hopefully works fine, as they fail more often than regular regulators), but now he's in a complicated scenario where he is holding an octopus in one hand and a complicated big mask/reg combo with straps that look like hannibal lector, and he has to let go of his octopus air source to put his full face mask back on. In the meantime, he's blind as a f*cking bat unless he likes saltwater in his eyes, (assuming he is diving ocean and not quarry- if it's a quarry it will just be bloody cold). I am not one to panic, however, this is a scenario where a lot of people WOULD panic, due to how stressful and ridiculously challenging it is. It's like playing a very hard and difficult game, where if you lose, you die. Sound fun? Not really.

Whereas with a half-mask (what I recommend), you can still breathe in through your mouth from your regulator, while you clear your half-mask if water gets in it. This is very easy once you have practiced it in a pool... breathe in thru mouth, and then exhale thru nose as you lean back and press the top of your mask with your index finger. Boom, water shoots out the bottom as air rises into the mask, your mask is cleared. It took 3 seconds and only 1 of your hands, and you were able to breathe the whole time.

2) Assuming the unlikely, very lucky event that your full face mask never floods (spoiler alert: it will flood), you still have to address the fact that you need to equalize your full face mask as you go deeper. Because as you go deeper, every 10 meters the water pressure DOUBLES. So an air bubble that was THIS "________" BIG at the surface, is now going to be THIS "____" big because the pressure shrunk it's volume in half. This causes pain in your nose, sinuses, ears, and eustachian tubes. The only way to equalize this is to change the pressure inside of your mask... which again, is hard with a full face mask... and then to equalize your ears/nose/eustachian tubes, by moving jaw, swallowing, very gently blowing or moving nose, etc. "Mask squeeze" and barotrauma (which is injury and pain caused by pressure related injuries) are very common with full face masks. They are jokes. Only guys who don't really dive, use them.

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With that said, I really do recommend diving because it's the most fun thing I've ever done, and I've partied quite a bit and gotten laid quite a bit, but it's not nearly as fun as diving.

You should try out a dive school, PADI programs are generally the easiest and most laid back but they still give good education for a general open water diver who wants to go no deeper than 120 feet. (They say you need an advanced cert to go past 60, but really, that's hogwash as long as you are smart, in good shape, mature, have good judgement, and have cleared/open nasal passages and ears and eustachian tubes. If you have issues or feel you arent ready though, then dont go past like 60 or 80 feet.

WHAT I RECOMMEND YOU WEAR:

Wear a half face scuba mask that covers your face and eyes. Also get what's called a "low volume mask", one made of 100% silicone. They are very flexible and feel better, and are also MUCH better at keeping an airtight seal. Don't get one made of rubber or plastic, they leak way more.

This article might be a couple years old (like 2 to 5 years or so) so idk if the exact "models" here are still available widely, or if they are even the best. But it just gives you a GENERAL IDEA of what you want- a half face, 100% silicone, modern high quality scuba mask. They normally cost around $60 or $80 or so. You can sometimes get them on sale for slightly less. Some cost a little more, like $120 to $200. The most important thing is getting a mask which fits your face well.

https://www.theadventurejunkies.com/best-scuba-div...

Yes if you get one that fits correctly.

Possibly not

not if you're a long faced black folk

Depends on how well they fit....