How to measure for gloves

What size gloves do I need?

After measuring for gloves, you should know what size would be best suited for your hands. However, if you prefer to have tighter or looser gloves, you may want to make changes so your hands feel more comfortable.

How to make gloves tighter

If you’ve chosen gloves that are the correct size but want a tighter fit, you can shrink them to make them more comfortable around your hands and fingers.

When some materials like cotton or wool are heated, they shrink. Due to this, your washing machine and dryer can be used as an effective way of shrinking your gloves if they’re made from either of these materials. Simply put your cotton or wool gloves in the washing machine on high heat and for a long cycle. You can then put them in the dryer, leaving them until each cycle is complete and take them out after every spin to see if they’re tight enough. If you’re not suitably happy with the feel, you can continue to put them in the dryer for another spin until they’re comfortable.

Leather gloves, however, require a different approach. If you want to shrink leather gloves, you should heat water in a pot on your hob until it begins to boil, take it off the heat and let it cool for around five minutes. Once it’s cooled, put your leather gloves into the pot and check that they’re completely under the water. After a few minutes, take the gloves out, lie them down on a flat surface and blow over them using a hair dryer on the warmest setting. Let the gloves cool down, try them on, and if they’ve not shrunk to your liking, repeat the process.

How to stretch gloves

If your gloves are tighter than expected, you simply prefer looser fitting gloves or you have gloves that are tight due to being brand new, there are ways of stretching them.

With cotton, wool or leather gloves, there are several ways to stretch them out. For example, you could soak them in cold water and then put them on to form a new shape. Then, flatten them out using a few heavy objects and they should dry in a more stretched out shape.

Alternatively, you could pad out your gloves with newspaper. To do this, dampen several sheets of newspaper, stuff the wet sheets into each finger of the glove and remove them after between one and two days when the newspaper is dry. Through the wet newspaper drying and expanding, the inside of the gloves will have expanded with it, stretching the material out.