Kleenguard G10 Blue Nitrile Gloves (57373),
Large, Powder-Free, 6 Mil, Ambidextrous,
Thin Mil, Sold by the Box of 100

Price: About $13

Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours
Click on the image to order.

(You can print this review in landscape mode, if you want a hardcopy)

Reviewer: Mark Lamendola

This is an Amazon Vine review, which means I didn't actually buy these. If I had, I would have gotten the next size up. I wear an XL glove, these are Large. Even so, they (amazingly) fit with reasonable comfort. That is not to say they will flop all over your hand if you wear a Large; they will fit your hand perfectly. It's just that they can stretch for a larger hand. With these stretched a bit, I'm not getting the full 6 mil of protection but what I am getting is pretty close.

So how does one rate a seemingly commodity item such as nitrile gloves? Well, if you've ever bought super cheap ones you have probably found they rip out easily and are thus useless because the protection is unreliable. Or they don't fit right. Let's see how the Kleenguard product stacks up.

First, note that they come in a dispenser-top box. Most nitrile gloves do, and the reasoning here should be obvious. My advice is don't buy nitrile gloves unless they come in a dispenser-top box. These gloves are generally intended for single-time use. They protect your hands, getting the dangerous or yucky stuff on themselves. These gloves do not have a wrist extension, except that inch or two you see in the product image. So while you might not wash dishes with these, they are perfect for cleaning (getting solvents on the gloves, not on your hands) or engaging in other work in which you need a fairly impermeable barrier between the skin of your hands and whatever substance you wish to protect your hands from.

• The fit. As mentioned, these are too small for me so you could expect me to not say anything here. But the gloves did stretch to fit my hands. And the fingers were the right length. Poorly designed/made gloves often have "floppy finger" syndrome, which interferes with your ability to work. These don't have that problem. I also looked at unstretched gloves and found these to have a consistent design. Consistently good.
• Smell. How does a glove protect your skin when it's laden with harsh chemicals of its own? Or a fragrance? These are just gloves, no nasty stuff on them.
• Chemical resistance. These resist chemicals you are likely to encounter as, say, an industrial maintenance mechanic. Nitrile gloves protect against over a dozen categories of chemicals.
• Strength. Stretch a nitrile glove over a hand that is a size too small for the glove, and then pinch the material and tug firmly on it. The glove should rip, right? These held up to that abuse. Of course, you can tear them if you really work at it. But in normal use or even slightly abnormal use, the consistent thickness of the material gives it surprising durability.
• Sensitivity. I can still handle tools adroitly, while wearing these gloves.
• Allergies. These are Latex-free. They are also powder-free.

You can't go wrong with this choice. These gloves provide the protection you need without compromising in other areas. Not only that, they look good. Can you tell that I really like them?

Please note that these are not rated as PPE for electrical work. Nor are they meant to be used for barrier protection in medical or healthcare applications.

A tip for using these gloves for applications involving resins and other sticky (or gooey) materials. Always wear two pairs (one inside the other). Then if you find your gloves all gummed up, you can just roll them down and off. The inner pair will be clean and you can finish the job.