Hygiene Plus Food Handling Powder Free Gloves

Used to be Great - Now Appalling Quality issues – I've been buying these for over 20 years now, probably used thousands of them. And back in the first 7 to 10 years they were great. I remember they were much thicker and rarely had any issues with quality. I use them for outdoor and light duty mechanical and in the garage etc. I could use them multiple times if they were not torn. Also, I was attracted to them as they were powder free - that is, no added talcum powder to make them easier to put on. Talc is finely crushed rock and can irritate the skin.

Then after many years of buying them I started noticing problems. The quality became noticeably worse; thinner and weaker, with some of the gloves in the box tearing easily when putting on and cuts and holes and flaws in them making them unusable straight from the box. But most of them were still useable and so I persevered. Another thing I noticed was that they were never completely waterproof. This may be a characteristic of the natural rubber, or just fine pinholes in them. But using them around liquids, almost always resulted in a bit getting through onto the skin.

However, they are even worse than that now. Every box I have been buying for the last couple of years has an unacceptable number of unusable gloves. I have now stopped buying them and have found other brands to use. As shown in the pictures, these were just the first six or seven gloves, and all except one were full of flaws. Multiple cuts and holes and weak areas making them unusable. Especially for food handling! Which is what they are claimed to be for. Food handling requires gloves which seal out everything. Even ones that look ok at first, often tear up at the wrist area, sometimes completely off, so you are left with a circle of rubber around your wrist. People may say, "oh, you are too rough with putting them on". No, I am very careful because I don't want to damage them. If you've seen doctors, surgeons and vets putting on their gloves quickly... well you can't do that with these ones.

Nowadays, these particular gloves are a joke, and since it looks like the company that used to make them has changed hands, I'm not even going to contact them. The best I could hope for would be a token $10 credit voucher and they'll continue being this poor quality. I may send this review and the photos to a consumer product watchdog - if there is such a thing. As I wouldn't be surprised if other people have also complained.