Gloves protect hands. When I am cleaning the outside wood boiler, gloves protect my hands from burns. When I am clearing snow, gloves protect my hands from frostbite. When I am using a chainsaw, gloves protect my hands from cuts and scrapes.
Overview
In recent months, I have had the opportunity to test three different pairs of gloves under a variety of different conditions. Mechanix FastFit Coyote Gloves and Gardenline Heavy Duty Work Gloves protected my hands from abrasion, laceration, and cold. Igloos Men’s Leather Driving Gloves protected my hands primarily from cold. The Mechanix gloves were on sale for $15.19 at www.mechanix.com at the time of this writing. The Gardenline gloves were $9.99 at www.aldi.us back in November of 2022. The Igloo gloves had a manufacturer-suggested retail price of $12.99 whenever they were first tagged for sale.
I like the Mechanix gloves the best of the three even though they provide very little insulation value when wet. They are comfortable, they allow good dexterity, and they seem durable.
The Gardenline gloves run a little small and don’t seem to reflect the shape of my hands very well. I don’t really like them at all even though they are warm.
The Igloo gloves are a bit slippery for driving gloves, which kind of defeats their purpose of giving the driver a good grip on the steering wheel. The leather looks quite thin, so I am not optimistic about the long-term durability of the gloves. On the plus side, they are quite attractive and are reasonably warm. I was not overly impressed with this pair of gloves at first, but they are kind of growing on me.
Mechanix FastFit Coyote Gloves in More Detail
I have previously mentioned in other articles that the Youth Leaders at my church gave me a gift card to a sporting goods store. These gloves were one of the things I purchased with that gift card.
The Mechanix gloves are made in Vietnam, and are touchscreen capable. They are not flameproof or fire retardant.
The palms are made of a simulated leather which is 60% nylon, 38% polyurethane, and 2% carbon black. The backs are made of two different knitted fabrics. The first is 100% polyester. The second is 96% polyester and 4% spandex. The sides of the fingers and the back of the thumb are made of this second knitted fabric as well.
One of the things I like about FastFit gloves is that you can just pull them on without the need to unfasten and then re-fasten a velcro strap. In addition to the inconvenience that velcro straps represent, I find that they tend to collect stray lint, fibers, and other debris over time and become gradually less effective. It is nice that these gloves do not have that problem. After I took the gloves out of their packaging, I played a game of “musical gloves.” I put the new gloves in the pockets of my everyday jacket. I put the gloves that had been in the pockets of my everyday jacket in the pockets of my work jacket. I put the gloves that had been in the pockets of my work jacket in the glove bucket in the pole barn.
Over the course of the following months, I used the Mechanix gloves for a number of tasks. Besides keeping my hands warm every time I wore my everyday jacket, I used the gloves to protect my hands while I helped to haul furniture for a family from our church that had been in a traffic accident. I wore them while walking the dog in the crisp darkness of an early autumn evening. I used them to protect my hands while carrying an old washer and dryer up the stairs from the basement. I wore them while hauling firewood to the woodbox. I wore them while picking up broken glass from a fallen picture frame at church.
The gloves allowed enough dexterity to enter the code into the keypad that opens our garage door. They were excellent for driving, giving good grip on the wheel and great comfort. They were, however, not dextrous enough to allow me to remove items from my wallet while wearing them.
The gloves were not warm enough for below-freezing conditions, but they were generally comfortable for above-freezing conditions. The one exception was cool and wet conditions. When they became wet, the gloves seemed to conduct heat out rather than hold heat in. Under those conditions, I am not sure if they provide any more insulation than not wearing any gloves at all.
So I would rate the gloves highly on comfort, durability, and dexterity, while giving them a low rating on providing any warmth when wet. I liked these gloves enough that I ordered some to use as birthday gifts for the missionary men supported by our church.
Gardenline Heavy-Duty Work Gloves in More Detail
My wife, “Kari”, put a pair of work gloves in my stocking for Christmas.
These Gardenline gloves are made in Pakistan. They have an adjustable wrist closure utilizing a velcro strap. As I explained above, I don’t really like velcro straps on gloves. The gloves also have a touchscreen knuckle. This is an interesting idea, since the index finger on gloves tends to get dirty or worn during use. But I did not find the touchscreen knuckle to work very well for me in practical use. The gloves are insulated, machine washable, and waterproof. The palms are 100% polyester coated with polyurethane. The backs are 97% polyester and 3% spandex. The face of the thumb is 51% nylon and 49% polyester. The back of the thumb is 100% polyester. The waterproof membrane is 100% polyethylene, and the inside lining is 100% polyester.
I found the sizing of these gloves to run small, and their shape to correspond poorly with the actual shape of my hands. This made them uncomfortable, even though I found them to be quite warm. I found them to be so uncomfortable, in fact, that I terminated the testing period early just so that I would not have to wear them any more. The gloves are better than nothing, especially in cold weather. But since I have a host of other glove options, I decided that life was too short to wear an uncomfortable pair of gloves.
Igloos Men’s Leather Driving Gloves in More Detail
Kari picked up the Igloos gloves at a thrift store recently for $1.50 if I remember right. They were brand new, with the tags still attached.
The gloves are made in Pakistan. The shell is 100% leather. The membrane is Thinsulate, which is primarily made of either polyethylene terephthalate or polyethlene terephthalate mixed with polypropylene, depending on thickness. The lining is partly 100% polyester and partly 65% polyester and 35% “defin”, whatever that is. The Thinsulate tag on the gloves was printed in English, French, Spanish, Swedish, German, and Italian, and was printed in Japan. Igloos is a brand owned by Jacob Ash Holdings, which is a designer and distributor of cold weather fashion and performance accessories. Hot Shot, K.I.T., and HotMocs are several other brands owned by Jacob Ash.
The gloves are advertised to be “Pro-Text”, which is supposed to make them touchscreen compatible. In my testing, I found the “Pro-Text” feature to be unreliable, and often needed to take off the gloves to successfully utilize a touchscreen.
I put the gloves in the pocket of my everyday coat. The leather felt pretty thin, so I suspected that the gloves would be good for driving, but would not hold up well to any significantly demanding tasks like wood processing.
I quickly found the gloves to be more slippery on the steering wheel than I expected. This weakness moderated over time, but the gloves never came to offer the excellent grip that I expect from driving gloves.
Even though I did not intend for them to be work gloves, whatever gloves I happen to have with me tend to get pressed into service when there is a job to be done. For example, there was a section of metal tubing that needed to be held while we attempted to unscrew a fitting from the end of the tubing. When I could not grip the tubing tightly enough with my hands, I tried using to Igloos gloves to see if they would enable me to grip the tubing more tightly. They did not, being just as slippery on the tubing as they were on a steering wheel. I found myself wishing for the Mechanix gloves, which provide much better grip.
I did find the gloves to be warm down into the lower 20s Fahrenheit, and they are cut well also, so that they are quite comfortable. Warm, comfortable gloves put me in a good mood, and tend to make me forgiving of some of their other flaws.
Conclusions
I recommend the Mechanix gloves as long as you don’t need to wear them for protection from temperatures high enough to melt synthetics, low enough to freeze water, or cool in combination with water. The gloves are very comfortable, seem durable, and work well for temperatures in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s Fahrenheit.
I recommend that you run away from the Gardenline gloves as fast as you can unless you absolutely cannot find anything else. They seem designed for maximum discomfort.
The Igloos brand gloves could offer better grip, and be made of a heavier gauge of leather. They are warm and comfortable enough that I plan to keep them in the pockets of my everyday coat until they wear out. I hope that won’t be for a long time, but I am not optimistic.
Disclaimer
I did not receive any financial or other inducement to mention any vendor, product, or service in this article.