Glove Selection and Suitability Record

This record confirms one glove for one task; it does not assess the chemical hazard or the worker's skin condition in its own right. Using it as a substitute produces a suitability decision with nothing underneath it.

Glove standards are unusually specific: the ratings are numeric, published and testable, which makes the failure mode less about ambiguity and more about whether the rating was matched to the right thing.

Glove selection duties sit inside the general PPE obligation almost everywhere, with the European EN ratings serving as a de facto technical benchmark even outside Europe.

The rated fields are the easy part, because the numbers exist on a data sheet. What decides whether the glove actually works is the judgement applied around those numbers.

Glove selection findings look identical on paper and diverge badly in practice. The rating was correct; the decision around it was not.

A cleaning task using chlorine-based disinfectant had its glove specified from the safety data sheet's chemical resistance chart alone: nitrile, rated for the substance, breakthrough time comfortably longer than the task. The record marked breakthrough time and degradation as adequate, but user consultation and trial were both left as no, since the glove was already in stock and the specification was treated as a formality.

On the line, workers found the thickness too stiff to grip small connector fittings in the same task, and started removing the gloves for that part of the job while leaving them on for the rest. Within a season, several developed contact dermatitis, some from unprotected contact during the ungloved portions and some from prolonged sweat trapped inside a glove correctly rated but too thick to wear continuously. The chemical rating had been right all along; the decision around it had never been tested against the people doing the work.

The specification itself is straightforward to complete. What slips is the link between the glove in use, the chemical it resists, and the skin condition it is meant to prevent.

KnowHealth

Holds the glove specification against the skin check programme, connecting a developing reaction back to the glove rather than logging it as unrelated.

KnowSafe

Links the specification to the chemical register and the task it protects, flagging specifications not revisited after a substance change.

KnowQuality

Checks food contact approval where a task involves raw food materials, and keeps that evidence alongside the food safety record.

Ella

Watches dermatitis and skin check findings for a pattern pointing at a specific glove, and raises the specification for review.

Breakthrough time

The measured interval between a chemical first contacting a glove's outer surface and detectable permeation to the inside, under standard test conditions.

Permeation

The process by which a chemical passes through a glove material at the molecular level, distinct from physical damage, and the basis for breakthrough time testing.

Degradation

A physical change in a glove material from chemical contact, such as swelling, hardening or cracking, which can compromise protection before breakthrough time is reached.

Occlusion

The trapping of moisture, heat and sweat against the skin under an impermeable glove, a recognised cause of irritant contact dermatitis independent of any chemical hazard.

Chemical protective glove class

The EN 374 classification assigned by breakthrough time against a defined list of test chemicals, matching a glove to a specific substance rather than chemicals generally.