WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.-- While some people have turned to household items to create masks to wear out in public, doctors said it's important to use the proper materials to ensure that your mask is effective.

Wake Forest Baptist Health's Dr. Scott Segal said his team investigated the effectiveness of homemade masks based on the materials used to create them.

He said they compared cloth masks and their ability to filter small particles to a standard surgical mask, or an N95 mask.

Dr. Segal explained the results with the cloth masks greatly varied.

“We had some masks that outperformed surgical masks, which filtered up  to 79 percent of the small particles, and we have some that filtered less than 20 percent, so what we concluded was the material made a pretty big difference in its ability to filter,” said Dr. Segal.

He said people should use a thicker weave and heavier weight material.

The light test is good at determining if a given material is suitable, so if held up to a bright light, it shouldn’t be easy to see light coming through.

Dr. Segal also explained it's important to let the mask dry after wearing and you can wash them in a conventional way by air or machine dry.