Polar Breeze Bandanas (Cooling Neck Wraps)

12/24/2021

We are enjoying retirement but will keep in touch with our customers through Facebook. We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Stay safe, stay healthy.

12/01/2021

We have closed the website for any more orders. It is earlier than we anticipated, but we need to make sure our orders will be received by Christmas. We will not be opening the website again, but Polar Breeze Bandanas will remain on Facebook if you need to get in touch with us. We appreciate all the customers we have had in the past 13 years. It is with sadness that we close this part of our life, but also retirement is here and we are eager to slow down and enjoy traveling without worrying about the business. God bless you guys.

11/04/2021

Changes coming for 2022!

On December 31, 2021, we will be closing the website. This has been a hard decision, but we are ready for changes in our life. As with every business, the pandemic has affected us, and we are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the increased costs for our supplies. However, the main reason to close the website is that we are just ready to semi-retire. Running the website and business is especially hectic in the summer, and we are ready to slow down. However, Polar Breeze Bandanas is not closing! We are moving our store's inventory over to Etsy. This will allow us to continue our store on a part-time basis. The Etsy store will be open in May 2022.

10/12/2021

It has been a minute since I posted here! We had a very good summer, and the hot weather at least is continuing on for us here in Tennessee. Unfortunately, I have to post some news about postage: We had to raise the rates on the website. We used to be able to buy our postage at a substantial discount and then could pass that savings to our customers. However, that discount program has now ended. We are having to pay the full USPS mailing rate for first class and priority mail. And, postage rates have increased as of Oct 1 in part because of the changes at the post office. I am sure that this will impact all small businesses who depend solely on the post office! That said, we are planning some changes for 2022 and will post about those next week. We are finalizing our plans for a new chapter in Polar Breeze Bandanas.

07/14/2021

We are about half way through summer. Each summer we have one color or print that sells the best. This summer, without question, we sold a lot of Khaki Cooling Neck Wraps. Last summer, it was Navy Cooling Neck Wraps. Summer 2019, it was Light Royal Blue Cooling Neck Wraps. Summer 2018, it was Classic Orange Cooling Neck Wrap.

07/02/2021

02/14/2021

Preparing for summer 2021!! We are continuing with our precautions at our work sites with masking and frequent cleaning of work areas. As with most small businesses, we have been affected by the pandemic. As such we have made changes for 2021 with a slight raise in our product prices as well as the free shipping. International shipping now is limited to Canada and Australia. We continue to experience delays in shipments with the USPS to certain areas of the USA, but it is improving. We thank our customers for their continued support, and we hope that everyone is staying safe.

12/24/2020

It has been a crazy year for us here at Polar Breeze! We will take the rest of the week off in order to slow down and relax. Please stay safe, and we hope that all our customers have a peaceful Christmas.

08/04/2020

Post office news: Polar Breeze Bandanas relies almost solely on the US post office to send out our orders, because UPS and FedEx are so much more expensive than the USPS. Back in late April, we started experiencing delays with overnight shipping, so we temporarily suspended overnight shipping. In late May and early June, our overseas orders were really delayed in customs clearance, and we were having to refund shipping costs. So, we made the decision to suspend overseas orders at this time. The news media has now begun to report on the delays, and we hope that this will improve the situation. We will continue to monitor the situation. Right now, we have not seen as many delays in the First Class shipping as we have in the Priority 2-day shipping, especially in the midwest areas of the USA. As you can imagine, this whole post office delay situation has left our small business and other online retailers very vulnerable. Even the items we order online to run our business have been delayed for several weeks. Please bear with us and remember to support your local and online small businesses!

07/24/2020

We just wanted to let our customers know that we will be suspending any international orders for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. We ship through the United States Post Office, and they have increased their list of countries that they will no longer ship to due to the pandemic. In addition, we have been having extreme delays in our international shipping packages being stuck in customs clearance. Our customers get very frustrated, and we have had to refund shipping costs in order to help our customers out. This is causing us to lose money. For this reason, we are forced to stop mailing international orders until things get better with the post office.

07/24/2020

We will be on vacation from July 25-29. Any orders placed during this time will be mailed on July 30 and 31. Thank you so much to our customers for their business. It helps our small family business to keep going.

07/16/2020

This was added to our Testimonial section on the website today!

I just must tell you that we have been using the cooling ties for a couple of days now, and I am very pleased with their performance. I have had similar items in the past, but none have worked even close to your product. My son and I work in a building where the air conditioner has been off since the middle of March and your ties have been a god send.

-BF, Canada

07/10/2020

We hope everyone is staying safe and cool during these COVID-19 and heat-dome days! Just to let our customers know: We have been having delays with the delivery of some of our packages with USPS - not countrywide but it's spotty. We are trying to keep track of the delivery times, and it seems the midwest is experiencing the most delays. The good news is that no packages are being lost, but the parcels are just sitting in the sorting facilities. In all likelihood, COVID-19 complications are slowing down the sorting of the mail in some facilities. We still have suspended any overnight shipping with USPS and UPS since they cannot guarantee yet a true 1-day shipping time.

05/22/2020

It's been a busy spring season for us during this time of COVID-19. We have been busy with selling what we have in stock, especially noncooling bandanas, and we have also been sewing face masks to donate. We will be closed for Memorial Day on Monday to rest and spend time socially distancing. We hope that your holiday weekend is spent in remembering those who served their country in the past and present, especially the healthcare workers. Stay safe, stay cool.

04/30/2020

We have only a few patterns of our non-cooling Classic Bandanas left. The website has been updated to show what we left. We spoke with our fabric supplier, and they are not expecting to be able to resupply us until August at the earliest. The patterns we have left measure 22x22 inches.

04/09/2020

Unfortunately, for the time being, we are going to have to suspend overnight shipping with Polar Breeze Bandanas until further notice. We normally mail through USPS and UPS, but they have not been able to guarantee next-day delivery on our last two orders. We are selling out of our Classic Bandanas quite quickly, and we hope to be able to replace them as quick as we can. Thank you for your understanding. Please stay safe and thanks to our great customers for helping us small businesses!

04/05/2020

Wake Forest Baptist Health
Testing shows type of cloth used in homemade masks makes a difference, doctors say
2-Apr-2020 11:25 AM EDT, by Wake Forest Baptist Health
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Newswise — WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.– April 2, 2020 – Homemade masks can play an important role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic but the type of fabric used is key to their effectiveness, according to tests performed at Wake Forest Baptist Health.

In an effort to determine the protective qualities of homemade cloth masks, a team of doctors and scientists used rigorous testing, known as particulate filtration, to evaluate 13 different designs from approximately 400 masks made by community volunteers.

The goal was to find out which type of mask best removed particles 0.3 – 1.0 microns in diameter, the size of many viruses and bacteria, in comparison to standard surgical masks and N95 respirators.

“We saw the possibility that we could face a shortage of surgical masks in the hospital and wanted to investigate the possibility of using cloth masks as an alternative as long as they worked and provided good protection for our doctors, nurses and patients,” said Scott Segal, M.D., chair of anesthesiology at Wake Forest Baptist, who conceived of the idea.

Testing was done by the Manufacturing Development Center at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist.

What the test team found was that the masks’ effectiveness varied widely. The best homemade masks achieved 79% filtration as compared to surgical masks (62% to 65%) and N95 masks (97%). But other homemade masks tested performed significantly worse, sometimes demonstrating as little as 1% filtration, Segal said.

The best-performing design was constructed of two layers of high-quality, heavyweight “quilter’s cotton” with a thread count of 180 or more, and those with especially tight weave and thicker thread such as batiks. A double-layer mask with a simple cotton outer layer and an inner layer of flannel also performed well, he said.

The inferior performers consisted of single-layer masks or double-layer designs of lower quality, lightweight cotton.

“As important as this information is for hospitals, it is also important for people who want to make masks for their own use,” Segal said. “We don’t want people to think that just any piece of cloth is good enough and have a false sense of security.”

Non-commercially produced masks are not currently in use at Wake Forest Baptist due to regulatory restrictions. However, Segal said, there is a group of community volunteers already making surgical masks based on design specifications indicated by the test with fabric provided by the hospital.

“We are so grateful to these wonderful people who are donating their skill and labor to help us do our work,” he said.