Great gloves

[avocadoincident]

Does anyone have any recommendations for really good gloves that can protect be from dealing with brambles and nettles please?

You want tough leather 'rigger' type gloves for brambles, but they can be harder to find in women's sizes. I have small hands anddo work on a local nature reserve which involves a lot of bramble cutting, I got some Briers riggers off the Internet which are pretty good

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Briers-B6417-Rigger-Gloves-Lavender/dp/B01KLTCZ4I

Softer leather gardening gloves are ok for nettles.

Now if anyone can recommend bramble and nettleproof summer-weight clothing ....

You can further protect yourself by working from the base wherever possible. Once you've found the base of one bramble, you can snip it as low as possible then hold the base and pull hard to get the top growth away from the tangle. Similarly with nettles. Then fork over and get out the roots. (I too work on a local nature reserve!)

That doesn't always work when the bugger is rooted at both ends! though sometimes the more newly rooted end will pull out. You need really tough gloves for bramble pulling.

And can I also urge the use of protective glasses (available from DIY shops). I think the thing I poked my eye with requiring antibiotics was only a grass stem, shudder to think what a bramble could have done.

Showa Thornmaster are pretty good.

Thanks everyone. Really helpful

I use these and the are brilliant. www.longacres.co.uk/gardening-products/gloves-and-footwear/gloves/gold-leaf-tough-touch-gloves-mens/
These are mens, I have the women’s version and have just bought these for DH. Cope really well with brambles and roses, nettles, anything. Mine are four years old and still good. I couldn’t be more pleased with them .

Gold leaf are lovely gloves, and the women's fit my hand well. But they're not totally thornproof - not 100% safe for holding cacti, for instance. I'm not sure I'd risk a firm grasp of a bramble stem, although they're fine for rose pruning or picking up a pile of hawthorn prunings.

I have used them for loads of bramble clearing and rose pruning, and had no problems whatsoever, other than when a rose spiked me above the glove. DH was pulling out brambles in his today.

I haven’t tried them with cacti though !

I need some new gloves.

I have some small brambles to tackle soon thanks to my neighbours gardens and what I do is use pruners to snip most of the bramble off, pick it up using said pruners and dispose.
Then I use a trowel to pull up/loosen the roots then hold the base of the roots and wiggle and pull.

With that method even without gloves I can remove a lot without injury.

I got some good gloves from Aldi last week. They're not too bulky, so they don't limit movement, and they have elasticated wrists to reduce the (imaginary) risk of spiders getting inside.