How we source this information
Every number on this site comes from a published standard, a manufacturer's own data, or a regulator. Nothing here comes from a lab bench of ours, because we do not have one. This page says exactly what that means, so you can judge how much weight a page deserves before you spec a case of gloves.
The standards these pages summarise
Four documents carry most of the weight on this site, plus one regulation that decides who is responsible for the choice. We summarise what each one measures. We do not reproduce their text: standards are copyrighted documents sold by the bodies that publish them, and the full wording, test conditions, and tolerances only exist inside the official copy.
| Document | What it actually covers | Published by |
|---|---|---|
| ANSI/ISEA 105 | Hand protection classification used in North America, including the A1 to A9 cut levels quoted across this site | ISEA, approved as an American National Standard by ANSI |
| ASTM F2992 | The TDM-100 test method that produces the gram-force result behind an ANSI cut letter | ASTM International |
| EN 388 | Abrasion, coupe cut, tear, and puncture digits on European labels, plus the optional TDM cut letter and impact mark | CEN |
| ISO 13997 | The TDM cut test that the EN 388 letter grade reports | ISO |
| OSHA 29 CFR 1910.138 | The US employer duty to assess hand hazards and select protection. Context for the decision, not a glove rating | OSHA |
Chemical resistance is the exception, and it is worth being blunt about it. There is no single rating that tells you a glove survives your chemical. Breakthrough time is specific to the polymer, the thickness, the concentration, and the temperature, which is why the chemical-resistant guide sends you to the safety data sheet and the manufacturer's permeation chart for that exact glove rather than to a table of ours.
Why you get rating bands instead of a shopping list
This desk does not run cut tests, permeation tests, or wear trials. No TDM-100 machine, no environmental chamber, no crew logging shift hours in a test pair. Publishing a "best glove" verdict would therefore mean one of two things: repeating a manufacturer's marketing back to you with an editorial byline on it, or inventing a result. Both are worse than useless when the outcome is a hand injury.
So the pages stop at the layer we can actually stand behind. They explain what a rating measures, which band suits which hazard, what the coating and cuff do, and where a scale stops being meaningful. The model number is left to you, your supplier, and the manufacturer's declaration for the size you will issue. Where a product or brand is named on this site, it is an illustration of a construction type, not a recommendation and not a test result.
Who writes this
Pages on this site are published under one collective byline, the HPC Gloves reference desk. That is a reference-desk byline for the desk that writes and re-checks this material. It is not a person, and no qualifications, certifications, or years of field experience are claimed under it.
We use a single byline on purpose. A named author with an invented biography would look more authoritative and mean less. What you can check instead is the sourcing: the standards named above, the re-checked date printed at the top of each page, and whether a correction you send gets acted on. Judge the desk on that record rather than on a headshot.
Your employer's hazard assessment still decides
Nothing here replaces a site-specific hazard assessment. A guide cannot see your blade type, your stock, how oily it is, how long contact lasts, or what the last incident report said. The employer carries that duty under OSHA and its equivalents elsewhere, and the assessment is what selects the glove. This site is background reading that helps you follow the reasoning and ask sharper questions.
That gap matters most on chemical work, where the SDS and the permeation chart govern, and on any task where a supervisor is choosing between two rating bands. If a page here disagrees with your manufacturer's declaration or your safety officer, they win.
When a standard changes
Standards get revised. Cut scales have been renumbered before and will be again, and a revision can move a threshold or change how a test is reported. When that happens the affected pages are rewritten, the re-checked date in the meta line moves, and where a change alters a number a buyer might already have acted on, the page says so in the body rather than quietly swapping the figure.
The cadence we hold ourselves to, stated so you can hold us to it: standards pages get re-read against the current published document at least twice a year, and immediately when a reader reports a discrepancy. Guides that lean on a standard are re-checked whenever that standard moves, and the re-checked date at the top of each page is how you tell when that last happened. A rating on a specific glove model stays with the revision it was tested under, which is why every page ends up in the same place: check the manufacturer's test report and declaration for the model and size you will issue.
How the site is paid for
Plainly: the running costs are paid by the site's owner. There is no display advertising on these pages, no sponsored placement, and no manufacturer, distributor, or certification body pays for coverage or sees a draft before it is published. Nobody has bought a mention here.
If a page ever carries an affiliate link to a retailer, it will be labelled on that page and it will not change which hazard class or rating band the page points you at. That rule exists now, before there is any money attached to breaking it. See the privacy page for what the site does and does not collect while you read.
What this site will not do
- Claim testing, lab measurements, or field trials it has not performed
- Publish star ratings, "best overall" rankings, or a verdict dressed up as a test result
- Accept payment, product, or placement in exchange for a recommendation
- Present itself as a certification body or sign off on anyone's compliance program
- Reproduce copyrighted standard text in place of the official document
- Invent an author, a credential, or a reader count to look bigger than it is
Corrections
If something on this site is wrong, we want to hear it. Email [email protected] with the page URL, the sentence you are disputing, and what the standard or manufacturer document actually says. That last part is the one worth including, because it is the part that can be checked.
The rule we hold ourselves to: if a correction holds, the page changes and its re-checked date moves with it. If a claim cannot be verified either way, the sentence comes out rather than staying up hedged. Corrections are handled by email rather than a ticket queue, so there is no turnaround time to promise and we are not going to invent one.
The bodies behind the numbers
Where you should go when this site is not enough, which for any compliance decision is always:
- ANSI (American National Standards Institute): Publisher of record for American National Standards, including ANSI/ISEA 105.
- ISEA (International Safety Equipment Association): Secretariat for ANSI/ISEA 105, the hand protection classification standard.
- ASTM International: ASTM F2992, the TDM cut test method behind the ANSI cut letter.
- CEN and CENELEC: The European standards bodies responsible for the EN 388 mechanical risk standard.
- ISO (International Organization for Standardization): ISO 13997, the TDM cut test referenced by the EN 388 letter grade.
- OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration): US employer duties for hazard assessment and PPE selection.