Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking, baking bread, and using my meat slicer to slice my own lunchmeats from roasts, so having cut resistant gloves is important to me. I have a pair of latex coated Kevlar cut resistant gloves but they're way too cumbersome and ill fitting to be able to grasp items very well while wearing them, so I decided to give these Stark Safe Cut Resistant Gloves a try. I ordered a size medium and they fit my hand like they were made for me so that helped me be able to do delicate knife work and other tasks while wearing them. I like the fact that they're made of an anti-bacterial blend to help me maintain sanitation when handling foods. The manufacturer states that they're rated via the European testing method (CEN's EN388) at Level 5 Protection which would be good because I would be using them when slicing foods with my meat slicer from time to time. Not taking anything for granted, however, I laid them on my cutting board and proceeded to try to cut into them by slicing them across the palm with my Wusthof Classic Chef's knife. It didn't cut them no matter how hard I applied pressure and sawed at them. Good! So then I got braver and put them on and applied careful, then a but more pressure trying to slice across my palm while wearing them with the same chef's knife. It did not cut through the material (WHEW!!!). Then I took a look at the product's reviews here on Amazon and found one from April 13, 2015 where the individual stated that he tested the gloves by inserting "a wooden spoon handle in the finger hole", then cutting it with a "sharp Swiss-made blade" and the knife sliced right through the glove. That worried me, so I decided to test that for myself, and inserted a wooden spoon handle into the thumb of one of the gloves and then proceeded to slice it with my sharpest Wusthof filet knife. My knife sliced into the glove immediately opening a hole that you'll see pictured below. I then laid the glove on the cutting board and sliced across the palm with that same filet knife trying to cut the glove - but was unable to cut it. Interesting - my knife cuts through the glove when a solid object is inside the glove but won't cut through the glove without a solid inflexible object inside it. Then I did some research and discovered that "Gloves that are too tight may be cut more easily, as many of the fibers used for cut resistance use a rolling action to increase cut resistance. When these fibers cannot roll, such as when they are stretched from an ill-fitting or wrongly sized glove, they can “lose” some of their cut resistance." (Cut Resistance: What's In a Level 5 Glove?, EHS Today, Feb 1, 2010 Issue - http://ehstoday.com/ppe/news/cut-resistance-whats-level-glove-7862). So stretching the glove tightly across a hard inflexible object such as a wooden spoon handle is not a valid test of cut resistance at all! Since I was totally unable to cut the gloves using the very same sharp filet knife when I tried cutting at parts that didn't have a wooden spoon in them I feel that is the valid test of these gloves- and they passed with flying colors. Safety tip from manufacturer: If you’re using sharp tool/object, avoid direct contact and/or stabbing directly with the end points. These gloves are cut-resistent, not stab/punture resistent. Photo taken by me shows the hole I cut in the finger stuffed with the wooden spoon - and the filet knife that was unable to cut the glove when I properly tested the cut resistance factor. When tested properly I was unable to cut these gloves at all - neither on or off my hand! Five well deserved stars. Item provided at discount for my evaluation - no obligations.