Cut-Resistant Glove Levels Explained

For a mandoline, a grater or a hand-held slicer in a home kitchen, you want ANSI level A4 or A5, or a glove stating EN 388 cut level 5 on the older index. All three gloves we recommend are in that band. Anything above it is industrial equipment you will find clumsy, and anything below it is a comfort glove with a safety-sounding label. The complication — and the reason this page exists — is that two unrelated standards both use the number 5, and they do not mean the same thing.

There are two scales, not one

ANSI/ISEA 105 is the American standard. Its cut-resistance classification runs A1 to A9, and the level is set by how much force — measured in grams of load on a blade drawn across the fabric — is needed to cut through. The published thresholds are:

EN 388 is the European standard, and it reports cut resistance twice. The older coup test spins a circular blade against the fabric and counts cycles until it cuts through, producing an index from 0 to 5— 0 is up to 1.2 cycles, 1 is above 1.2 to 2.5, 2 is above 2.5 to 5.0, 3 is above 5.0 to 10.0, 4 is above 10.0 to 20.0, and 5 is above 20.0 cycles. The 2016 revision adds a letter, A to F, from a straight-blade test reported in newtons, with thresholds at 2, 5, 10, 15, 22 and 30 N respectively.

You cannot convert between the two scales

It is tempting to line the scales up and read across, and it does not work. The two standards use different blades, different motions and different units — grams of load over a fixed distance of travel on one side, newtons and blade cycles on the other. A rough sense of overlap exists, which is why gloves in the kitchen band tend to show both a 5 and an A4 or A5, but there is no published conversion factor and anyone offering you one is guessing. If you are comparing two gloves, compare them on the same scale or do not compare them.

Which level a home kitchen actually needs

Mandoline, box grater, rotary grater, hand slicer: A4–A5. This is the band every glove we rank sits in, and it is enough. A mandoline blade is sharp but it is travelling slowly and under your own control; what you are protecting against is a skid across the fabric, which is exactly what this test measures.

Oyster shucking and breaking down proteins with a knife tip: no glove band helps. Cut resistance is not puncture resistance, and that distinction is on the card of every glove on this page. These fabrics resist a blade sliding. A point — a knife tip, a shucker, a fork, a skewer — passes between the fibres rather than cutting them. A glove is the wrong safeguard for that work and an A9 glove is no better at it than an A4.

Powered or serrated blades: no.Mercer states this outright for its own glove — not to be used with moving or serrated blades — and that limit applies to knit gloves generally. A moving blade can catch fabric and pull the hand in. If you own a powered slicer, the guard on the machine is the safety equipment, not the glove.

Above A5: diminishing returns in a kitchen. A6 and up means more or stiffer fibre, usually with steel or glass in the yarn, and the cost is dexterity. The whole point of a kitchen glove is that you can still feel a shrinking potato through it. A glove too clumsy to wear is a glove that sits in the drawer, which protects nothing.

What else to read on the packet

Food grade. An industrial A5 glove is not necessarily made for contact with food. The NoCry pick states food grade and 100% food safe explicitly; that is a separate claim from the cut rating and worth having.

Washing.A glove used on raw chicken needs washing, properly. All three picks are washable and the Mercer publishes machine washable up to 180°F, which is a commercial sanitizing temperature rather than a domestic one.

How many you get. This catches people out: the Mercer is sold as a single glove, not a pair, because in a professional kitchen you glove the hand holding the food. The NoCry is ambidextrous, so a two-pack covers both hands or two cooks.

Nothing at all. If a glove publishes neither an ANSI level nor an EN 388 result, it is making a marketing claim rather than a safety claim, and you have no way to check it. That is the one disqualifier. Our cut-resistant glove roundup ranks the three that do publish, and the mandoline safety guidecovers the habits that matter more than any glove — because the glove is the backstop, not the method.