Skip to content

What’s The Difference Between Nitrile, Latex, and Vinyl Gloves?

Disposable gloves are an important item in virtually any healthcare environment. They not merely protect healthcare providers and individuals from contact with possibly hazardous microbes, additionally, they assist establish a precedent of care and hygiene across the market. While this should not come as a shock, that which you may not have recognized is the fact that disposable gloves are not all created equal.

Unique design as well as materials choices make certain products much better suited for various health environments. And in case you order the incorrect kind of glove for the practice of yours, you might wind up wasting resources and boosting the risk of tears, rips, and punctures.

Disposable gloves are usually made of one of 3 materials: nitrile, latex, and vinyl. In this particular blog site, we will check out the reason why these gloves completely different from one another, in addition to offer guidance into what environments each type is most suitable for.
Latex gloves

For many years, latex continues to be the rockstar of the medical disposable glove world. This’s simply because, as noted by Darwin Brown in Physician Assistant, latex gloves have been recommended protection in the 1980s and 1990s against bloodborne pathogens as HIV. But simply because their popularity increased, therefore did cases of allergic reactions. This led to more need for latex free disposable glove options, like vinyl and nitrile. For all those that are not sensitive, latex gloves are comfy, fairly economical, and also provide a high level of touch sensitivity.

With excessive levels of freedom, comfort, and protection, disposable latex gloves are ideal for many health environments — so long as latex allergies aren’t a problem.
Vinyl gloves

Vinyl gloves are manufactured from PVC, a petroleum based film. The main advantage of vinyl disposable gloves is they are economical to manufacture. That said, they’re less durable compared to nitrile and latex, and they provide limited protection against chemical or maybe biomedical exposure. When vinyl gloves are stretched or maybe flexed, the single molecules individual and also the integrity of the defensive barrier is compromised. Vinyl gloves have raised a white flag in conditions of the environmental impact of theirs, as noted by Safety and Health International.

Due to the affordable of theirs and minimal safety levels, vinyl gloves powder free are usually used in low-infection and non-hazardous environments.
Nitrile gloves

Nitrile gloves came to prominence in the 1990s as a prominent latex alternative. While they are significantly less flexible or elastic as the latex counterparts of theirs, disposable nitrile gloves are particularly stronger and resistant to chemicals. As a result, these gloves would be the best option for anybody who must manage corrosive and hazardous potentially chemical substances. They’re likewise perfectly suited for many health environments, being exceptionally puncture resistant and removing the danger of latex allergy reactions.

Knowing these crucial variations are going to help you create the correct choice when choosing brand new exam gloves for your organization’s special healthcare environment.