Donning gloves correctly starts before you even touch them: clean your hands first, choose the right size, and use a technique that keeps the protective surface uncontaminated. Whether you’re putting on standard exam gloves or sterile surgical gloves, the steps matter because a poorly donned glove can tear, fit badly, or expose you to the very hazards it’s meant to block.
Clean and Dry Your Hands First
The CDC recommends performing hand hygiene before donning gloves every time. For routine tasks, washing with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand rub is sufficient. The key detail most people skip is drying completely. Wet or damp hands make gloves harder to pull on, increase the chance of tearing thin material, and can trap moisture against your skin for the entire time you wear them.
For surgical settings, the standard is a full prewash of hands and forearms with non-antimicrobial soap, followed by an alcohol-based antiseptic. You then let everything air-dry before touching sterile gloves. Residual moisture under a surgical glove creates a warm, wet environment that promotes bacterial growth if the glove is breached.
How to Find Your Correct Glove Size
Wrap a measuring tape around the widest part of your palm, just below the knuckles, excluding the thumb. The circumference in inches roughly equals your numbered glove size. A hand measuring 8.5 inches around, for example, corresponds to a size 8.5 or medium in most systems.
Here’s a quick reference for standard exam and work gloves based on palm width at the knuckles:
- XS (Size 6): 2 to 2.5 inches wide
- S (Size 7): 2.5 to 3 inches
- M (Size 8): 3 to 3.5 inches
- L (Size 9): 3.5 to 4 inches
- XL (Size 10): 4 to 4.5 inches
- XXL (Size 11): 4.5 to 5 inches
A glove that’s too tight restricts movement, fatigues your hands faster, and is more likely to tear. A glove that’s too loose reduces your grip and dexterity, and the excess material can catch on objects. When in doubt between two sizes, go with the larger one for tasks requiring heavy hand movement and the snugger one for tasks requiring fine motor control.
Donning Non-Sterile Exam Gloves
Standard exam gloves are the type used for most patient care, cleaning, food handling, and general protection. They come in a box, aren’t individually wrapped, and don’t require a sterile technique to put on.
Pull one glove from the box by the cuff (the wrist opening). Slide your hand in, keeping your fingers together and your thumb slightly tucked to avoid snagging the material. Pull the cuff down past your wrist. If you’re wearing a gown, extend the glove cuff over the gown’s wrist to eliminate any gap of exposed skin. Repeat with the second hand.
Once both gloves are on, interlace your fingers and adjust the fit so there’s no bunching between the fingers and the material sits smoothly across your palm. Check for any visible tears or holes, especially around the fingertips and the web between your thumb and index finger, which are the most common failure points.
Donning Sterile Gloves
Sterile gloves come in individually sealed packages, and the technique for putting them on is designed to keep the outer surface (the side that will touch the patient or sterile field) completely untouched by your bare skin.
Open the outer packaging and lay it flat on a clean surface. Inside, the gloves are folded with the cuffs turned back. With your dominant hand, grasp the opposite glove by the folded inner cuff only. This is the part that will rest against your wrist, so touching it doesn’t compromise sterility. Slide your non-dominant hand in, keeping your fingers straight and your thumb tucked. Leave the cuff folded for now.
Now slide the gloved fingers of your non-dominant hand under the folded cuff of the remaining glove. Because gloved fingers are touching only the sterile outer surface, this keeps everything clean. Slip your dominant hand in, again keeping fingers straight and thumb tucked. Once both gloves are on, reach under each folded cuff and pull it back toward your elbow, unfolding them to their full length. At no point should your bare skin contact the outer surface of either glove.
If you accidentally touch the outside of a sterile glove with your bare hand or any non-sterile surface, discard the pair and start over with a fresh package.
Choosing the Right Glove Material
The three most common disposable glove materials are latex, nitrile, and vinyl, and each has trade-offs.
Nitrile offers the best chemical resistance when your hands are relatively still. But research from the CDC found that repetitive hand movement reduces nitrile’s breakthrough time (how long before a chemical seeps through) by 31%, and can more than double the amount of chemical that permeates the material. Latex is more forgiving during active hand movement, losing only about 23% of its breakthrough time, and maintains a lower overall permeation rate. Vinyl is the least affected by movement but provides the weakest chemical barrier of the three.
For tasks involving frequent hand motion, like cleaning with solvents or handling chemicals in a lab, latex may actually outperform nitrile despite nitrile’s reputation for superior chemical resistance. For brief, low-movement tasks, nitrile remains the stronger barrier. Vinyl works fine for low-risk situations like food prep where chemical exposure is minimal. If you or your patients have a latex allergy, nitrile is the standard alternative. OSHA requires employers to make hypoallergenic gloves, glove liners, or powderless options available to workers with allergies.
When to Change Gloves
Disposable gloves are single-use. OSHA regulations are explicit: you cannot wash or decontaminate disposable exam or surgical gloves for reuse. Replace them as soon as they become visibly contaminated, torn, or punctured, or whenever their ability to act as a barrier is compromised. In patient care, change gloves between every patient and between dirty and clean tasks on the same patient.
Even gloves that look intact can have invisible micro-perforations. In a study published in The American Journal of Surgery, nearly 9% of single-use gloves showed perforations after surgical procedures. Double gloving (wearing two pairs) eliminated inner glove perforations entirely: while 11.3% of outer gloves in the double-gloved group had holes, 0% of the inner gloves were breached. For high-risk procedures involving sharp instruments or blood exposure, this is a meaningful layer of protection.
Removing Gloves Safely
The rule for removal is simple: glove touches glove, skin touches skin. Pinch the outside of one glove near the wrist with your other gloved hand and peel it off, turning it inside out as it comes off your hand. Hold the removed glove in a ball in your still-gloved hand. Then slide your bare fingers under the wrist of the remaining glove, touching only the inside surface, and peel it off over the first glove so both end up nested inside out. Dispose of them immediately.
Wash your hands right after removal. OSHA requires this, and it’s not just a formality. Micro-perforations you couldn’t see or feel may have allowed contaminants through during use, and your hands will have been in a warm, moist environment that bacteria thrive in.