By Molly Snyder Senior Writer Published Dec 28, 2016 at 9:04 AM

What do you do when you don’t want to wear a full-on face mask to beat the cold but still struggle with a shivery schnoz? Anja Notanja Sieger has the solution.

Since the great blizzard of 2010, Sieger has crafted "nose mittens" – which she also refers to as "nose condoms."

For almost seven years, she has crocheted "more then seven furlongs" (a furlong is equivalent to 660 feet) worth of snout ovens. Hmm, we might have a Pinocchio nose-growing situation here.

Regardless, Sieger is ready to custom craft nose warmers.

"I have sold them locally, but currently they are by request only since I am largely on leave from the capitalist system. But I will totally sell you one for $20 if you go to my new nose warmer shop," says Sieger.

All nose warmers are available in the yarn color of the purchaser’s choice. Sieger measures faces and noses to ensure it’s the right fit.

"Noses and their accompanying faces come in all different sizes, and all unregulated by factory standards," she says.

Sieger, who is also a performance artist, ornate paper cutter and typewriter poet, says she was inspired to create the frozen-snot stoppers when she was a kid and her neighbors sometimes served as her babysitters.

"It was an older couple whom would play me ‘You Are My Sunshine’ on their harmonicas. One day the husband of the couple got out a ruler and decided to measure everyone’s noses, from brow to nostrils, just for the thrill of it, and I was thrilled, oddly," she says. "I still use this method today when designing nose warmers."

But what happens if someone wears a woolly snout shield with a runny nose? Sieger says "no(se) problem!"

"If you know you tend to get runny noses then I suggest having one nose warmer for every day of the week or every time that you go outside between laundry day. But honestly, snot happens," she says. "Luckily no one notices your excessive mucosal production when you cover up, in fact you may even find the things to be pleasantly absorbent."

Buy your nose a New Year’s gift here.


Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.

Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.