I’ve heard about gloves with holes in them!

No producer in the world can guarantee that their gloves are free from pinholes. This fact is recognised by the industry worldwide, and even though all steps are taken to reduce them to a minimum, pinholes are an unavoidable fact of life.

To help understand the process, gloves are made by dipping ceramic formers into a tank of liquid natural latex (or other materials).
During this dipping, bubbles very occasionally attach themselves to the former as it passes through the tank. Any air bubble attached to a former can cause a thin spot in the film that can turn into a pin hole.

To address this issue, the EN 455 European Standard for Medical Gloves sets an absolute limit for the incidence of pinholes, which is set according to the International Standard ISO 2859-1 Sampling by Attributes. For example, the EN 455 standard states that for Medical Gloves, the General Inspection Level 1 has to be used with a level of AQL 1.5 (Acceptance Quality Limit)

Translating these requirements into practical terms means that if we manufacture a batch of over 500,000 gloves a random sample of 500 pieces has to be taken and tested for pinholes. Of these 500 samples, if 14 or fewer have pinholes the batch is of an acceptable standard. If 15 or more have pinholes the entire batch has to be rejected.