Glove leather

[Serriadh]

Goat or cow? I'm finding it strangely difficult to get any useful information on why one would choose one over the other.

I'm assuming that goat leather is either grippier, or more supple, or harder wearing, or some combination of the above... but it could just as easily be a bit of marketing for all I've been able to find out

Could anyone enlighten me?

 

[mountainm]

What's the glove gonna do? Lambs leather is soft and luxurious but I wouldn't do my gardening in it....

 

[Serriadh]

Hah, yes. Probably should have mentioned that.

I'm primarily interested in gloves for doing things rather than just looking nice or feeling nice, and that can cope with a bit of wear and tear. Some of the goat leather gloves I've been looking at are intended for things like mountaineering or ice climbing, others for vaguely specified 'outdoorsy' things that might include chopping up trees and setting them on fire. Others still seem just to be fancy ski gloves where I'm assuming the choice of material is far more marketing driven.

 

[iotarho]

Alot of the really top spec 'fancy ski gloves' are intended for backcountry skiing and mountaineering skiing so need to be really hard wearing and all that - so the materials tend to be suited for that. Of course, some are shell gloves, others are insulated, etc etc, so that has to be taken into account. Hestra are pretty much the perfect glove and preferred or wanted by nearly everybody engaging in winter activities. I use mine for skiing, winter climbing (belays), the odd spot of iceclimbing and even wear them to the yard to muck out the horses on really cold days! Mine have goat leather palms if that's any use to you, and are pretty damn hard wearing.

 

[Serriadh]

Ski gloves seem to be split between cow and goat; mountaineering and ice climbing gloves seem to be more on the goat side. Skiing also attracts a lot of people willing to spend big money somewhat unnecessarily, so its hard to tell the useful bits of gear from the form-over-function bits of fashion gear without a bit more investigation; one of the reasons I came here (and looked at ice climbing sites) as it seems that practicality is prized here above the rest

Found an interesting post on teton gravity (which also happened to be about hestra gloves, but that was sorta incidental) here which basically answers my question. So that's nice. To summarise (if only for the benefit of google and future readers ): goat leather starts out stiffer than cow leather, but ends up more supple after some wear and treatment. Its also more durable, and has better resistance to dryness and heat.

Seems like the hestra guide/falt is a pretty popular bit of gear all over the interwebs, and is in the same sort of price bracket as the other items I'm looking at. And by a happy coincidence, I have a birthday coming up, too!