Our Two Most Common Questions Are “How Many Mils and How Much?

• November 25 2025

Choosing disposable gloves based only on thickness (mils) and price is a common but often costly mistake. Here's what actually determines a glove's true value:

• The Hidden Cost of Failure: When a cheap glove rips, the cost isn't just the few cents for the glove itself. The real cost is in the non-productive labor time spent changing it, which can quickly add up and make a "cheaper" glove the more expensive option.

• Why Thickness Can Deceive: A "mil" is simply a measurement (0.001 inches), not a guarantee of quality. Manufacturers can use fillers (up to 40%!) that make a glove thicker but not better, causing it to tear more easily than a thinner, well-made alternative.

• The Hallmarks of a Great Glove: The best glove for the job is determined by its material composition, manufacturing consistency, fit, and texture. These factors dictate its durability and performance, which ultimately drives its real-world value.

  The Bottom Line

  Focus on Total Cost, Not Box Price...

  "Mils" Don't Equal Strength...

  Performance is What Matters...

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The Full Story

Let’s talk about the 2 most common questions we get here. They go something like this:
“How many mils are these gloves?”
and right after that —
“How much per box?”

Fair questions, but here’s the thing; those two numbers don’t tell you the whole story. Not even close.

If you’ve ever had gloves that commonly tear halfway through a job or even commonly while donning and before you’ve even used them at all, you’ve realized your “great deal” ended up being not-so-great because you burned through boxes twice as fast.

Let’s break this down a little to what really matters when it comes to picking gloves that actually work.

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The Indirect Cost of Cheap Gloves

Here are some indirect or "hidden" costs associated with using inferior gloves that many people don’t consider. When a glove fails, the costs incurred are much greater than few cents cost of the glove itself.

These hidden costs include:

• Labor Cost: The time an employee spends stopping their work, removing the failed gloves, walking to the supply area, getting new ones, and putting them on is paid, non-productive time.

• Productivity Loss: While that employee is changing gloves, their primary task is not being done. This slows down the entire workflow, reduces output, and can create bottlenecks in a production line.

• Increased Consumption: If gloves fail frequently, a worker will naturally use more of them over the course of a day, increasing the total number of boxes purchased over time.

• Safety and Contamination: In many jobs, a glove failure can lead to safety risks (e.g., exposure to chemicals) or product contamination (e.g., in food service or clean rooms), which carry their own significant costs.

A Simple Example

One glove that lasts even 10% longer is worth more than 10% more in upfront cost."

Assume an employee makes $18 per hour and it takes them 1 minute to change gloves.

• Cost of a 1-minute glove change: $18/hour is $0.30 per minute. So, every glove change costs $0.30 in lost labor, not including the cost of the glove itself.

In this scenario, paying 20% more for the durable glove actually cuts the total operating cost nearly in half! Crazy but true.

What “Mils” Actually Mean (and Why It’s Not Everything)

A “mil” is just a way of saying thousandths of an inch. It’s commonly confused with millimeters or sometimes milliliters but 5 mils is just 5 one thousandths of an inch.

So a 6 mil glove is 0.006 inches thick.
That’s all it means.

Thicker gloves can be stronger, sure. But it’s not that simple.

To give you an idea of what a mil is, standard copy paper is about 4 mils thick. To get 1 mil you’d have to stand that piece of paper on its edge and try to slice it 4 times. That’s a small number!

If the glove material quality isn’t there — maybe it’s stuffed with fillers to cut costs — that “6 mil” glove might actually perform worse than a well-made 5 mil glove. Some manufacturers use up to 40% filler! Whatever they feel they can get away with knowing the average consumer only looks a mils and no deeper.

What if the manufacturer just wants to run their production line fast and doesn’t care about how many defective gloves they produce? Well there goes the quality too.

And on the flip side, sometimes “thicker” just means stiffer or less comfortable. Ever tried picking up small screws or doing detail work with a super-thick glove? It’s like trying to text with oven mitts.

The point is: mils give you a ballpark idea AND are relevant, but they don’t tell you the whole story.

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The Other Stuff That Actually Matters

It’s hard to get into it all in a short blog but here’s some of what really separates a glove that works from one that just looks good on paper.

1. The Material Itself

Not all nitrile or latex is the same. Some compounds stretch better, resist chemicals more, or simply last longer. Two “nitrile” gloves from different factories can behave totally differently. The factories will source their raw materials from different sources and some are known for better quality than others.

2. How It’s Made

Some gloves are single-layer, others are double-dipped for extra strength and grip. Sometimes you can see this and sometimes you can’t, such as when both plies are the same color. If you’ve read our post on 2-ply nitrile gloves, you already know that extra layer makes a big difference.

3. Fit and Comfort

This one’s huge. A glove that doesn’t stretch right tires your hands out. Too loose, and it slips or tears. Fit isn’t just about comfort — it’s about how long you’ll actually want to keep the gloves on.

4. Grip and Texture

If your job involves oil, grease, or moisture, texture can be the difference between safety and frustration. Raised diamond grips, micro-textures — they all help you hold tools securely instead of fighting with them. What people hardly ever consider besides the grip is that the compound of the rubber affects the grip as well and in my opinion more than the grip itself. Too much of one chemical in the mix rather than the other and the glove is slippery no matter what the texture/grip of the glove is. It’s like tires. You can have tires with the same tread but with different grips.

5. Consistency

Ever notice how some brands feel different from one box to the next? That’s manufacturing quality control. Sometimes it’s importers sourcing from whichever manufacturer is the cheapest on the particular day they are buying. Shockingly common! Reliable gloves perform the same every time, and that consistency matters if you stop for a second to think about it. You want to set it and forget it.

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The Price Trap

Price always comes up. We get it. Of course it’s an important factor. Everyone has a budget. We want to be the lowest cost provider of gloves you can rely upon. That's how I got started in this and I haven’t forgotten.

Here’s a reality: a cheaper glove that rips or fails more than it should costs you more in the long run. A lot more.

Just use slightly more gloves than necessary and factor in lost labor and productivity costs and the clear winner is the better glove that costs just a fraction more upfront.

A good glove should make your work easier. It’s literally the tool you may use all day every day.

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How to Buy Smarter (Not Just Cheaper)

Here’s a simple way to buy smarter that we share with customers all the time:

• Match the glove to the job. Light work? Maybe you just need a basic 5 mil nitrile glove. No frills, just four fingers and a thumb, and 5 mils thick. No holes, not stuck together, all there but basic. We’ve got that. Heavy work? Go thicker. But don’t just default to “max mils.” You want what you need and nothing more. Sometimes your work is a mixed bag and maybe you want to have a glove on hand like our budget brand 5 Milglove and then another more robust glove like TopGrip HD or Glovezilla next to it for heavier duty tasks.
  
  

• Do the math on value. One box that lasts twice as long is worth FAR more than two boxes of junk.
  

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The Bottom Line

Thickness and price matter but they’re just part of the picture.

A great glove is one you barely notice because it fits right, protects well, and doesn’t get in your way. It should feel like a tool you trust, not a liability, annoyance or rip-off (in price, no pun intended). You don’t need to pay an astronomical amount for good gloves. It’s totally unnecessary. The gloves you see online that are much higher in price than ours are not any better. They just cost more. We know we need to be a low cost provider of gloves. We strive to be the lowest cost online for a good quality glove in each product category. We are fanatical about finding efficiencies in operations to cut costs but there are limits and things we won’t do to save a few pennies in manufacturing or even customer service. If you call us we’ll answer the phone. Heck, you can reach me if you want. We want to be the glove provider you can trust. The one you can set it and forget it with. 

We hope you’ll Try Us On!

About The Author

Lawrence Drucker is the founder of UniSafeGloves.com, established in 1999. Before starting the company, Lawrence spent years as a mechanic, relying on disposable gloves every day. From practical experience he understands what works and what doesn’t work in a glove for people who work with their hands. He continues to innovate, improve materials, and raise the standard for tough gloves built for people who work with their hands.

 

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