How to recognize a fake 3M N95 8210 Respirator in a minute?
It's a 2-minute-finish article, there’s a summary in the end of the page if you're really lazy to read all.
3M 8210 is the most classic and popular N95 disposable respirator in the world, helps protect against certain particles such as those from grinding, sanding, sawing, bagging, or processing minerals, coal, iron ore, flour, metal, wood, pollen, etc. It provides at least 95% filtration efficiency of non-oil based particles with NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) approval.
There're lots of fake/ counterfeit 3M N95 product in the market, especially from China (reference: Sohu.com) . Some of the inferior counterfeit, you can tell by the quality and the packaging. The respirator itself is thinner or smelly, the caption of the packaging spelled wrong, etc. That is easy to recognize but if you have nothing to compare or you have zero knowledge of 3M 8210 N95 respirator, the following steps may help. Also, if you're facing a high quality counterfeit, you should definitely check this out.
1. Price
3M Malaysia doesn’t fix the price in the market. You may find 3M 8210 N95 Respirator costs from RM 35 - RM 100 (the selling price in the pharmacy is around RM 5/piece). It’s a wide margin. How can you tell whether it’s a real or fake product?
If your 3M 8210 costed below RM 50, well… how can I comfort you? It has a chance you got the imitation product. If not, the product might be imported from other countries, which doesn’t under 3M Malaysia’s coverage. That means you’re on your own risk because we can’t source back where’s the product came from. Never go too cheap for your health, you deserve better, I think your mom will agree with me.
Of course, the selling price is just for the reference, there're more ways to tell.
2. Packaging
3M 8210 has changed the packaging design silently, which is great for the consumer, the new packaging comes in a sealing box of 20 pieces respirator with an anti-counterfeit label. The anti-counterfeit label using 3M’s unique colour film will turn colours when rotated, like this:
Here's the short video of it for a better understanding:
If you still couldn't understand, lol, you're so funny.
3. 3M Safe Guard Program
3M 8210 N95 Respirator now has a secure code you can track down. If the new packaging didn’t have the anti-counterfeit label, which is an unlikely case in Malaysia/Singapore, you can visit 3M Safe Guard website to check the validation in just 4 steps:
Step 1: Visit 3M Safe Guard website, select “3M Disposable Respirator 8210”
Step 2: Click the image of 20 Pack/ Box
Step 3-1: Get the Secure code and Lot code from the bottom of your 3M 8210 box
Step 3-2: Insert those 2 codes and click “Check Validation”
Step 4: Get your result. If your result is like the image below, congratulations, your 3M 8210 respirator is not an counterfeit. If not, the respirator you bought is a potential counterfeit. Please contact 3M for further investigation. [Link: www.3m.com.my]
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Summary
How to recognize a fake 3M N95 8210 Respirator:
1. Too cheap
2. Old packaging has more potential of counterfeit, or new packaging without anti-counterfeit label
3. Get a fail result on 3M Safe Guard
How to avoid getting a fake 3M N95 8210 Respirator:
1. Don’t go for the super cheap 3M 8210, if you cannot be sure about the source
2. Go for the new packaging with anti-counterfeit sticker, it's 3M's technique to fight for the counterfeit
3. Check the validation of your product on 3M Safe Guard website
OR you know you can just buy from us, right? :) 3M has more than one type of N95 respirator. Go to our respirator page to check it out! If you don't know what is N95 means, forgive me, but why you checking this page at the beginning...
