The Uses Behind Cotton Gloves

You might recognize this type of glove on a variety of professionals, most notably Mickey Mouse impersonators. They tend to be white and be adequate for holding paintings, as they provide natural oils from damaging artwork, but cotton gloves also can be used for gritty jobs that require no more than to keep visible dirt and grime from your hands as a waiter or house cleaner. Most notably as an outlet for white gloves, however, are for arcane show business types, the like who appear in post-vaudevillian forms of entertainment: miming, magic, jazzy and Fosse-inspired forms of musical theater, etc.

The main purpose behind making gloves out of cotton is mostly presentational. As they are porous and allow the permeability of liquids, including body fluids, they are wholly impractical for sterile purposes. However, as a Marine, it is hardly necessary to be sterile to fold a flag, only respectful. The white gloves made from cotton stand symbolically for purity and share the likeness of purpose of a wedding dress; they do more for the beholder on the outside than the ones doing the actual holding.

Practically, the main purpose is in absorbing the oil our skin involuntarily secretes (not too mention smudge prevention), which is white cotton gloves are perfect in holding print negatives and photographs for fear of contamination. Imagine the horror in devaluing an otherwise extremely valuable photographic original of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe in a candid setting, for instance, for mistakenly bringing it to an appraiser with having purchased a pack of cotton gloves prior. Of course not having a protective sleeve would be a curious matter alone. A more common example: you own windows (who doesn’t?) and a flat screen television, and want to give of a good first impression to a virginal house guest. Cotton gloves are ideal for removing finger prints from potentially pristine surfaces and not adding anymore along the way. They also make for an under-glove of sorts if you do happen to be allergic to latex and can form a layer of protection beneath latex gloves and still maintain the necessary amount of sterility to carry out a job requiring it (likely not surgery though, given the restricted motility).

Cotton gloves, alone, do offer a substantial amount of movement comparable to knit gloves that allow the formation of snowballs which gortex ones prevent. Germaphobes may revel at this feature in needing the adornment of such to open waiting room doors at the doctor’s office. As a sort of tissue replacement, a pair of cotton gloves offer plentiful protection from standard airborne germs and simple contact ones (and go great with a surgical mask if you want to double your disease prevention). Surface germs that may loosely-habitat dirty specimens, alongside general rust and dirt) would be adequate disarmed of effectiveness, and make a wise precaution for inspectors trying to get a closer look at antiques and foreign objects. Who knows what kind of epidemic was circulating at the time, or in the house, of an antique sewing machine at the time it was used in its prime. Cotton gloves, at the very least, form a padded layer against deceased history and immediate uncertainty.