How to Choose the Best Work Gloves
Hard, back-breaking work is already tough enough. Why pile on cuts, burns, abrasions, or nerve damage to your work if you don't have to?

A little bit of skin protection can make a world of difference. Gloves can lower the odds of a hand injury on a worksite by up to 70%.

But the real challenge is picking the right kind of glove. You need to sort through all the different types of gloves to find one that fits your workplace needs and is comfortable to wear.

To help point you in the right direction, here are some steps you can take to narrow down the best work gloves for you.

Choosing the Material
The first step to finding a work glove is to choose the right material. Depending on your work, you'll need different types of materials to accommodate the different tasks.

Let's take a closer look at what you're protecting your hands from.

Cuts and Punctures
Tasks like gardening, landscaping, carpentry, cooking, metalworking, or other tool-related jobs will need puncture-resistant gloves.

While tough, cut resistant gloves won't protect you from all injury, they can help reduce the chance that you'll slice your hands while working.

Look for a material with the right thickness and padding for your job. This can mean something simple like a leather glove to protect you from splinters. It can also mean something a bit more complex, like reinforced palms, padded fingers, or knuckle guards.

Bruising and Blistering
If you're doing construction, heavy yard work, woodworking, or other jobs that use power tools, you'll need gloves that are impact resistant.

These gloves will have extra padding on the palm and knuckle of the hand. This will help absorb the shock of a heavy blow or the vibration from power tools, keeping your hands protected from chafing, blistering, or bruising.

Water and Chemicals
Jobs like gardening, plumbing, carpentry, painting, auto work, or the use of any chemicals will require liquid-resistant gloves.

You need to find a glove that's watertight but still allows for a range of movement. For maximum resistance, look for materials that allow no water at all--often coated in rubber on the exterior or made of waterproof material.

If you don't need complete water resistance, you can also find materials that have been coated with a material that helps them shed water.

If you're looking for concrete gloves for an outdoor job or construction work, you can find a special rubber coating that will let you handle substances like concrete, tar, or mortar.

Heat and Cold
Tasks that involve heat, like welding and metalworking, or jobs like shoveling snow or working outdoors in cold weather require gloves that will give you protection from the elements.

Heat-resistant gloves are made of a durable, fire-resistant material that will protect your hands against sparks. Many metalworking gloves also include a fire retardant to reduce the chance fo the gloves igniting.

Cold-resistant gloves are lined with a material to provide insulation for your hands and trap heat inside the gloves.

Electricity
Any job that involves electric work or hands-on engineering may give you an electric shock.

If you're doing any work that's likely to be near live wires, look for material like leather or rubber to reduce the chance of electric shock. Avoid any kind of metal and double-check the materials to make sure that