Hollis M1 Frameless Scuba Diving Mask

Hollis M1 Frameless Mask: A Single-Lens Frameless Mask Built for Optical Clarity

The Hollis M1 is a frameless, single-lens dive mask built around one specific idea: cleaner, truer vision underwater.

If you are a recreational diver who has noticed that colours look washed out or that your current lens has a greenish cast in deeper water, this mask was designed with exactly that problem in mind.

The Lens: Where This Mask Is Different

Most tempered glass lenses contain enough iron to produce a faint green tint. You may not notice it on land, but underwater, where light is already being filtered by depth and water column, that tint reduces colour accuracy and dims the image.

The M1 uses Saint-Gobain Diamant tempered glass, a low-iron formulation that lets more light through and produces a noticeably cleaner, less tinted view.

In practical terms, colours read more accurately at depth, and in low-light conditions, such as dusk dives, wreck interiors, or deeper reef walls, the image stays brighter and sharper than you would get from a standard lens.

The lens spans the full front of the mask as a single wide pane, which gives you a broad horizontal field of view without a frame cutting across your sightline.

Fit and the Frameless Design

Frameless masks remove the rigid plastic frame that normally sits between the lens and the skirt. The lens bonds directly to the silicone.

This does two things. It reduces the overall profile of the mask, making it significantly easier to fold flat and stow in a BCD pocket. It also tends to bring the lens closer to your face, which lowers internal volume.

Low internal volume matters for one practical reason: clearing the mask is easier. When water gets in, you are exhaling through your nose to push out a smaller air space. Less effort, fewer breaths, done.

The skirt is 100% pure silicone with a double feathered edge. The feathering means the outer lip of the skirt is thin and flexible, so it conforms to the contours of your face rather than pressing against them with a hard edge. The result is a seal that holds without feeling rigid or leaving a pronounced mark after a long dive.

The strap is a wide split-style silicone band, which distributes pressure across the back of your head more evenly than a narrow strap. Low-profile quick-adjust buckles let you fine-tune the fit at the surface without wrestling with the hardware.

The M1 is available in all black.

Practicality: Storage and Backup Use

Because the frameless design folds down compactly, the M1 is a reasonable candidate to carry as a backup mask in your BCD pocket. Experienced divers who want a reliable spare without dedicating a whole bag pocket to it will appreciate that.

The mask ships with a protective mask box, which matters more than it sounds. A rigid case keeps the lens scratch-free during travel and prevents the silicone skirt from being deformed when packed under other gear.

Who This Mask Suits, and Who It May Not

The M1 is a strong choice if optical quality is your priority and you dive in conditions where colour and light matter: reefs, wrecks, low-visibility water, or anything deeper than 15 metres where the spectrum starts to compress.

It is also a practical pick as a travel mask or backup, given how flat it packs.

If you need prescription lenses, check with the manufacturer whether corrective lenses are available for the M1 before buying. And if you prefer a framed mask for a specific fit reason, such as a particularly narrow or wide face that you have learned suits a framed skirt, the frameless construction is not adjustable in the same way a framed mask sometimes can be.

For most recreational divers who want genuinely better underwater vision in a mask that travels well, the M1 is worth serious consideration.