Selecting the right kind of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for your employees is essential to help keep them safe while they complete their daily tasks. While we believe that cutting safety begins with the correct tools and training, cut resistant gloves also offer certain benefits. 

With many cut resistant gloves on the market, it’s important to break down their benefits and limitations so they can be used alongside safety knives to reduce the risk of injury or accidents and workplace injuries.

Knife proof gloves do not exist, but gloves designed to protect the wearer’s hands while working with sharp tools, used alongside good safety practices, can protect the wearers' hands from cuts while working with sharp tools. 

Are Cut Resistant Gloves Knife Proof?

Although cut resistant gloves cannot eliminate the risk of getting injured entirely, they can minimize the chance that it will happen. These gloves can add additional levels of precaution and can protect fingers and hands from:

  • - Lacerations
  • - Cuts
  • - Knife injuries
  • - Cutting accidents

The primary reason that laceration and cut accidents occur is that workers were not taking necessary safety precautions with their cutting tools. Exercising safety precautions is the most important factor in preventing unwanted accidents, but no cut gloves are a good supplement.  

The effectiveness of your cut-resistant gloves will depend on a number of factors such as:

  • - Force
  • - Direction
  • - Blade sharpness
  • - Cut length

Short Answer: It Depends on the Type of Cut Resistant Hand Gloves

Equipping your workforce with cut resistant gloves not only protects them, but it also demonstrates that you are committed to maintaining a high standard of safety. The best cut resistant gloves are only as good as the safety practices of the worker. 

Some industries require higher levels of protection than others. Workers using general purpose knives to open boxes will have different needs than workers who additionally handle metal works, piping, potentially harmful materials, or steel cables. 

It’s also important to consider why the gloves are necessary. Are they also protecting workers from abrasion? High temperatures? Other risks? The benefits of gloves go beyond cut resistance.

How Do Cut Resistant Gloves Work and What are the Benefits?

Cut-resistant gloves are designed to be just that – cut resistant. No glove will ever be cut-proof, however, they are still very beneficial to wear considering 70% of workers who had hand or finger injuries were not wearing gloves. 

It is also worth noting that exposed knife blades do still pose a risk for other parts of the body that are exposed (like arms or legs). Therefore, multiple pieces of PPE are often necessary to adequately protect your employees.

Cut Resistant Materials

Cut-resistant gloves come in various styles, and they also can be made from different materials. Additionally, their safety levels are rated and tested based on standards that are set by the American National Standards Institute’s ASTM F2992 cut test.

Choose the Type of Cut Resistant Gloves for the Task 

It is natural to think that the highest-rated glove is the one you should buy, but that is not always the case. The right kind of cut-resistant glove to purchase is the one that best protects your workers from the hazards they face. 

For example, wearing heavy-duty gloves for simple tasks may not give your employees enough dexterity to do their jobs right. Therefore, they may be tempted to remove their gloves to do the tasks, and as a result, they put their safety at risk.

Limitations of Cut-Proof Gloves

No glove is completely cut-proof, and therefore, gloves are limited in what they can do to maintain safety. Workers may have a false sense of security while they are wearing them and perform dangerous tasks that they otherwise wouldn’t.

Cut-resistant gloves may not be able to withstand direct contact with a sharp knife, and an injury could still occur. However, a cut that generally might require stitches could be minimized into a cut that only needs a band-aid when cut resistant gloves are worn.