Chemical-resistant gloves are sold on a code - EN 374 and a string of letters - that most buyers cannot decode and most cheap suppliers exploit. The truth is that no glove resists all chemicals, and the only meaningful spec is breakthrough time against the specific chemical your customer uses. Here is how EN 374 actually works, why a glove can be both certified and wrong, and how to source against the real number.
The One Truth Behind Every Chemical Glove
Start here, because it reframes the whole purchase: there is no universal chemical-resistant glove. A glove that shrugs off acetone for an hour may let a different solvent through in three minutes. Chemical resistance is always glove material versus specific chemical versus contact time - never a general property. So the most important thing you can get from your customer is the actual chemical (and concentration) they handle. A buyer who orders chemical-resistant gloves without naming the chemical is buying a coin flip, and a supplier who sells chemical-resistant without asking which chemical is either careless or hoping you do not know better.
Decoding EN 374
EN 374 is the European chemical and micro-organism protection standard, and it comes in parts that the letter codes refer to. The key concept is permeation: a panel of test chemicals (each assigned a letter, A through to T and beyond in the current scheme) is tested, and the glove earns a protection class based on breakthrough time against each. Type A, B, or C classification tells you how many of those test chemicals the glove resisted for a defined minimum time. The micro-organism pictogram (often paired with EN 374-5) covers bacteria/fungi and optionally viruses. When a supplier shows you an EN 374 mark, the question is always which letters and what breakthrough time - the pictogram alone is not the answer.
Breakthrough Time Is the Number to Buy On
Permeation breakthrough time is the minutes before the chemical passes through the glove material at a molecular level - and crucially this happens with no visible damage, which is why workers trust a glove that is already failing. EN 374 reports breakthrough in performance levels (Level 1 is more than 10 minutes, up to Level 6 at more than 480 minutes). Match this to the task: a quick dip-and-wipe needs less than a full-shift immersion. Put the required breakthrough time against the named chemical on your spec sheet. This is the figure that should drive the material choice, and it is the figure cheap suppliers most often cannot actually produce a test report for.
Materials and What They Resist
Material choice flows from the chemical. Nitrile is the workhorse - excellent against oils, greases, many solvents, and a broad everyday range, which is why most general chemical gloves are nitrile. Neoprene handles acids, bases, and alcohols well. Butyl rubber is the specialist for ketones and esters (it resists acetone where nitrile fails fast). Viton/FKM handles aromatic and chlorinated solvents that defeat almost everything else, at a steep price. PVC is cheap and fine for acids and bases but poor on solvents. The thickness and length matter too - a longer gauntlet and a thicker film both extend breakthrough time. We will recommend the material from the named chemical rather than defaulting to whatever is cheapest to mould.
Where This Overlaps Compliance, and Where It Does Not
Chemical resistance (EN 374, a physical performance) is separate from chemical compliance of the glove itself (whether the glove contains restricted substances), and buyers blur these. A glove can pass EN 374 permeation and still need to meet EU REACH limits on what is in the glove material - those are two different conversations and two different documents. If your market is the EU, you need both: the EN 374 performance report and the substance compliance. We cover the substance side in our EU REACH compliance guide; this article is about the performance side. Do not let a supplier wave one certificate to answer both questions.
MOQ, Pricing and the Sample Test
Chemical-resistant nitrile and neoprene gloves run from 1,000 pairs MOQ (chemical gloves are usually dipped on formers, so tooling and line setup push the minimum higher than knitted gloves), FOB Ningbo from USD 0.45 for a basic nitrile dip up to several dollars for a thick butyl or Viton specialist. The non-negotiable step here is an independent permeation test of the production material against your actual chemical - not the supplier's generic brochure number. For a serious chemical programme, budget for a third-party lab (SGS, Intertek) permeation test on a production sample. It costs a few hundred dollars and it is the difference between a spec and a hope.
How to Vet a Chemical-Glove Supplier
Vet on knowledge, not promises. Tell them the chemical and ask which material they recommend and why - a real supplier reasons from the chemical to nitrile/neoprene/butyl/Viton; a weak one just says yes our gloves are chemical resistant. Ask for an EN 374 permeation report showing the letter codes and breakthrough levels, and ask whether they will support a third-party permeation test on a production sample against your chemical. Ask about glove length and thickness options, because those are the easy levers for breakthrough time. A supplier who engages technically on breakthrough time is one worth sampling; the rest are selling a pictogram. The broader vetting checklist still applies.
Our Honest Position on Chemical Gloves
We start every chemical enquiry by asking for the chemical and concentration, because we will not pretend a single glove resists everything. We recommend the material from the chemical, supply EN 374 permeation reports with the letter codes and breakthrough levels, and actively support an independent permeation test on a production sample for any serious programme - we would rather you test and trust the number than take our word. We are also clear that EN 374 performance and EU substance compliance are two separate documents, and we provide both for EU buyers. In a category where the failure is invisible until a worker is hurt, the breakthrough number against the right chemical is the only honest way to sell.
Need Physical Samples?
For verified B2B buyers we ship 1-2 reference samples free (you cover the courier - ~USD 35 to most countries). Custom mock-ups with your logo run USD 60-120 depending on decoration, refunded against your first PO.
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