When purchasing work gloves, it is vital to pay attention to the characteristics and qualities of the listed glove. It can be easy for manufacturers to “oversell” what their gloves can actually do and so you need to have a good handle on what type of protection you actually need, and line those needs up with the protections the gloves offer.
One important feature to pay attention to when it comes to finding quality gloves for your task, is the glove coating. There are several common types of glove coatings that we’re going to highlight this week.
Latex: This is a natural rubber material, similar in properties to nitrile. It is a durable material and is often applied as a thick coating that provides wearers with excellent grip in dry conditions and if it boasts a crinkle finish, it will provide excellent grip in wet applications. It’s great for handling heavy, rough-sided materials like metal or lumber.
Polyurethane: You’ll find this material listed as “PU” for short and it offers a thinner glove coating alternative that helps to maintain tactile sensitivity. It is a super resilient material, but should not be considered resistant to abrasions or tears, because of how thin it is. One thing PU surprisingly does very well at is providing wearers with excellent grip in mildly wet or oily conditions.
Nitrile: Nitrile is a synthetic rubber material comparable to latex an is extremely durable and resistant to chemicals. It is really quite flexible and is also resistant to abrasion. A nitrile foam coating offers great grip in dry circumstances while a mircosurface nitrile coating is best for wet and oily grip.
NeoFoamÒ: This material is an engineered formula that is a very flexible foam glove coating. It offers excellent grip in virtually all circumstance and it is very flexible. It is not as abrasion resistant as nitrile, and so it shouldn’t be listed as a comparable replacement to a nitrile glove coating.
Moral of the story, do your research and select the proper glove coating so you don’t end up with just another “cheap glove”.
