jmatsu's Full Review: Atlas 370 Garden Club Gloves. Assorted Colors - 4 ...
Atlas Nitrile Touch Gardening Gloves are the best gloves I've found for working in the yard. They are made from a very lightweight stretchy fabric that is knit to size, so there are no seams. The absence of seams and slight stretchiness allow the gloves to fit snugly around fingertips, giving me a lot of dexterity when I have them on. I can pick up small pebbles and tiny weeds.
The gloves have a nitrile coating (looks like rubberized plastic) on one side, covering the palm and innerside of the fingers. It also covers the fingertips completely past the fingernails. It has a very slight texture, but I tend to think of it as smooth.
How They Work
I do a LOT of gardening, so I usually wear gloves to protect my hands from the worst of it. I was attracted to these because the coating seemed like it would protect the inside of the gloves from getting wet when I have to deal with moist earth or wet plants and leaves. I'm in the Pacific NorthWET, so the plants are often damp when I have time to garden. As promised, the coating really does help to keep the gloves and my hands dry when I deal with damp leaves and earth. If I reach into a puddle, the water can slosh over the protected area and soak the inside of the gloves--but that's to be expected.
The backs of the gloves aren't coated, so it allows my hands to breathe, preventing the gloves from getting as manky as some completely vinyl-coated gloves I've tried in the past.
The gloves are comfortable. In the summer my hands don't feel too hot when I have them on, so I use them on wet or dry days. They are reasonably durable--I would say more durable than the average cloth-only ladies gardening gloves that I used to use, but nowhere near as durable as leather gloves. How durable depends on what I'm doing.
For me, the gloves wear out at the fingertips first. I don't usually get obvious holes--instead the coating gets fine cracks that allow dirt to seep through and get under my fingernails and stain my fingertips. My fingernails are often 1/8th to 1/4th inch long, so that might contribute to it. However I think the main culprit is that our property has a lot of rocks. The previous owner thought that the best way to handle poorly draining clay soil was to pour a lot of small rocks into it. So, every time I try to plant something or dig any where, I end up scrabbling through and sifting soil filled with sharp rocks. This is hard on the poor gloves. I find that if I'm just yanking up ivy, weeding, pruning and raking that the gloves last a lot longer. But you gotta do, what you gotta do. Often when I should use leather gloves, I use these instead because they are just more comfortable and offer better dexterity.
If I'm careful, I can even use them when I'm dealing with slightly thorny plants--but I DON'T recommend this. Use leather gloves instead. These gloves, though slightly more thorn resistant than regular cloth gloves (twice nothing is still nothing), provide next to no protection against thorns. However, sometimes I'll wear a leather glove on one hand and an Atlas glove on the other. I can use the leather-protected hand to grip the thorny object and the other hand to do things requiring more dexerity (handle clippers, pick things up, etc.).
Generally I would say that the only glove to provide more dexterity are surgical gloves, BUT those are too delicate to last long while gardening.
About these Gloves
- Machine washable (and can survive the dryer) - Made in Vietnam by the Showa Glove Co. - Come in 4 different bright colors (I like purple) - Come in small, medium, large - Usually costs around $7 (though I've seen it for $7.99 and sometimes find it on sale for $5) (getting it in the multipack shown here seems a good deal)
A Winter Glove
There is another glove I like that is not available on Epinions, so I'll mention it here. I've found it in Fred Meyer's gardening dept. It's called "The Joy of Gardening" (I think the number is #F1790W). It's a maroon knit with a grey nitrile coating.
It's my winter gardening glove. The knit is much, much thicker than the Atlas glove--too hot for summer, but great for keeping hands warm on cold days. Likewise the nitrile coating is much thicker and has a heavy texture, so it's more durable than the Atlas and offers better thorn protection (but again, for thorns I recommend leather).
The gloves are not as snug and so thick that they don't provide the same dexterity (but neither do frozen fingers). They are also good for keeping hands warm while shovelling snow. A clean pair is great for building snowmen (use dirty gloves and you get grubby snowmen).
Fantastic prices with ease & c...(Stock status: N/A)
Nitrile Touch Gloves by Atlas--the ultimate garden and work glove. The result of years of research with new materials. Seamless, breathable, and out-p...More at Amazon Marketplace
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