Dear Guest, welcome to my small personal page. I am going to try to give you some insights into the world of masquerade in genreal and the therefore needed masks in detail.
General information about masks:
Since ancient times masks were used to cover the wearers face. The reasons therefor are of different nature. beside being often used in art and theater (starting in ancient greece) they were used as well for religious reasons as well as disguising the waerer for different reasons. The usage of masks did not remain limited to a single area, but was observed during several times in most of the areas of the world.
Used material:
Mask are porduced from a wide variety of materials. In past times, facemasks were produced mainly from natural ressources such as timber, clay, leather, paper or fabric. Today, additional to the mentioned source materials PVC, Latex, rubber and silicone are used as well. Especially latex and rubber are suitable materials due to their comfortability, but also due to thier flexibility and ability to adapt to the head of the carrier for the production of full face masks, which cover the whole head. The visual result that can be achived by a disguise with the help of these masks is close to realistic.
Disguising with masks:
Masks are occasionally used to garble the identity of the person behind the hood, for illegal or legal reasons. Disguising by mask is always illegal if done in context with a felony. This can, under several national laws, lead to an increased penalty. To elaborate this with examples: this could be caused e.g. when the delinquent robs a bank masked or withdraws money from an ATM with a stolen cash card while disguised by a mask (ok, he might be hard to identify due to the mummery, but they usually get caught sometime...). Usually unobjectionable is the wearing if it's for instance done by police officer who want to avoid identification while on a mission or if worn by protesters against organisation, if those organisations seem to have a habit of to act in a respressive manner (e.g. wearing the V for Vendetta masks by activists of 'Anonymus'
Sources: There are several shops in the internet that sell masks. An excellent example is one called Mask Shop, selling mostly latex masks such as female and male realistic masks and some horror masks for halloween, which are quite scary. Recommended, as the items are high quality!
Other uses:
Far more pleasant is the usage of masks for seasonal events like carneval, halloween or Shrove Tuesday with the aim to spread joy and happiness (carneval) or horror and scare, as it done for halloween. The usage of movie masks is also notable in special film productions, to create monsters out of n