All my life I've been a person who never wears gloves. Every once in a while, I'll find a pair of winter gloves or gardening gloves that I think I'll wear. I'll bring them home and put them on, only to take them off within a few minutes. I finally gave up and told myself I wasn't going to waste the money any more.
This spring I was at a plant sale with many "hard core" gardeners in attendance. About five totally separate people I knew, asked if I "had the gloves?" As in, did I already own them or was I going to get them? And if not, then I should get them. To each I responded, I don't buy gloves because I never wear them and always end up taking them off. They each said they were the same way too until they found "those gloves". So I asked, ok - show me and tell me why you like them. They were light, thin, flexible, and comfortable but of course I had not "put them to the test". Their responses were, "mud doesn't cake up on them because of the texture of the latex", "my hands sweat a lot and these are cotton and they breathe so well", "they're really light", "they're so thin, I can feel what I'm doing", "feel how flexible they are", "you can wash them"...
Ok, so I tried some on. Humm.... not too bad, they fit, they're light. What about the price? They were selling for $5.00 and one of the gardeners had told me they had bought theirs for over $9.00 just a month ago. Well, I'm a skeptic and I hadn't planned on spending hardly any money. I did notice that a lot of people had purchasing the gloves so I asked some other long time gardeners I knew about them. They all said those were the best gloves.
Ok, I'll give them a try. They're on sale and every long time gardener is telling me that they never wore gloves until they found those and they sure aren't getting anything for telling me.
Well, I have to say... I absolutely love them. I can transplant seedlings with them they're so thin. And at the same time they're durable enough to withstand moving rocks and thorny blackberry bushes, and slimy mud and gripping garden spades. Everyone was right. Mud doesn't cake on, they're breathable, they're amazingly flexible and comfortable. They don't have those annoying seams that are so uncomfortable with other gloves. It's official - I'm a convert. In fact, one day I couldn't find them and spent a half hour just looking for them because I'd become so accustomed to using them I missed them! That was the first time I realized how much I really did appreciate them. Found them the next day... whew! Told myself I should get another pair just in case! LOL!
So what are they?
I guess the most common generic term for them is 'grip garden gloves'. Different companies make them from what I can tell. The front is a thin, flexible, textured, latex coating which goes just over the fingertips on the back just enough to keep your fingers dry even if you're picking up something muddy. Pretty cool. The glove itself is a very flexible, stretchy, extremely breathable cotton material. And there's a bit of elastic at the top, not too tight to hurt but just enough to prevent things from falling into your glove while your using them. The latex really does "grip" tools really well, so much so, you'll notice when you don't have them on.
I've seen them in different colors. The cotton is usually off white or some other variation on ivory. The latex comes is a lighter green, grey, blue, and any other number of colors. In fact, I was looking for pictures and found a purple one I'm going to have to keep an eye out for - my goal for my future second pair. LOL!
I saw the same gloves at my local grocery store in the "hardware" section being sold for about $6.00 by Stanley. So there are obviously many uses and many makers and suppliers.
For what it's worth, I highly recommend them - as you can tell.
Here are pictures of what they look like. If the latex comes up higher on any gloves you see on the back - than those are not what I'm talking about. I am only referring to those which resemble the gloves in the following pictures and mine do not have anything printed on the back side.
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Close up of the texture of the latex from my own gloves:
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Hope this helps someone out there...
:)
Violet
jakkom
dawnstorm
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