28 Aug ANSI slides into home plate with its new glove ratings label
There is a new symbol on work gloves that you will be seeing going forward. This is what it looks like:
It’s the result of the 2024 revision of the ANSI standard ANSI/ISEA 105. ANSI standards undergo a review every 5 years. The most significant change made to the standard this revision cycle was the introduction of this label.
The label is meant to capture the 3 most common risk ratings for gloves and sleeves in a singular pictogram. You will need to learn how to decode it to benefit from the information it contains.
The pentagon contains the ANSI rating for Abrasion, Cut, and Puncture. These will always be positioned in the same order, and if any of the three ratings is not available, an “X” will occupy the spot where that rating is meant to appear.
So how do you remember which number corresponds to which risk? The cut rating is going to be obvious, because it is the only number paired with the letter “A.” But the other two: how do you remember which one rates resistance to abrasion, and which is puncture resistance? Just remember that “A” comes before “P.”
This change is an indication of the growing sophistication of glove buyers. Since ANSI testing is voluntary, it historically has only been done when the market was asking for it. Cut level ratings have been widely available on gloves that possessed cut resistant properties for a long time now, and abrasion and puncture ratings are increasingly in demand.
For more information on what the ratings mean, we have a other articles devoted to the topic on this blog.
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