The disposable glove market has seen a shortage of thicker products ever since the emergence of COVID-19. In order to meet astronomically higher demand for nitrile, manufacturers were forced to produce more gloves at thinner measurements (and in smaller sizes).
Some of our most popular gloves—especially the Raised Diamond Texture suite, 8-mil orange and green, and 6-mil black and royal blue nitrile—have been in extremely short supply for the better part of two years.
Many end users have had to adapt to thinner gloves such as our 3-mil products. Some have dabbled in vinyl, which is a great choice for short-duration use but not what anyone would want to wear for rebuilding a carburetor.
This has made for some unhappy end-users.
“They like these with the texture, the color, and this thickness,” says one of our distributor partners from a trucking company in Florida. “The [Gloveworks Orange] is a great glove. Give it to you guys, you got a hell of a product. They’ll take the orange or the green. They don’t really care about the color, but they do need the texturing and most of all, the thickness.”
Not only a virtue, patience is essential
Because of ongoing supply chain woes, those orange and green gloves have been slow to arrive from overseas. Anyone who has ordered from us in the last few months has found them backordered.
Some have turned to alternatives. Another of our partners, a chemical company owner in Trinidad, found flexibility with exam-grade nitrile for industrial use.
Before COVID, “the Gloveworks Orange was our bread and butter,” he says. “We turned to the indigo AINPF, but in a smaller way. With COVID we found a lot of new buyers for the indigo—people love that glove. With the orange glove not available, people have substituted using the indigo where they can.”
A more appropriate solution can be found in a reliable supply of thicker nitrile: Gloveworks Industrial Black Nitrile Gloves.
At 5 mils, these gloves are an excellent choice until Raised Diamond Texture gloves are back in stock, likely sometime early in the new year.
Awesome gloves in their own right
They deliver top-notch barrier protection against common and specialty chemicals, especially those that are petroleum based. Highly resistant to punctures, rips, and tears, they are still known for their fit, feel, and high level of comfort.
AIC’s distributor partners have sold millions of Gloveworks Black Nitrile gloves. They continue to be a consistently winning product across multiple industries, especially in automotive and industrial uses.
