Ansell.

About Ansell

The Ansell story begins in Melbourne, Australia, in 1905, when Eric Norman Ansell established the Ansell Rubber Company to manufacture rubber goods for industrial and medical use. Rubber gloves were a relatively new product at the time, and the company built its early reputation on quality and consistency in a market that had few reliable suppliers. That grounding in precision rubber goods manufacture gave Ansell a technical base that shaped how the business approached product development as protective glove technology evolved over the following decades.

The business grew through the twentieth century, was acquired by the Australian industrial conglomerate Pacific Dunlop, and eventually became Ansell Limited in 2002 following a series of divestitures that left the company focused entirely on protection solutions. Today it is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and operates manufacturing and distribution across the Americas, Europe and Asia, but the core business remains what it has always been: making gloves that protect people at work.

Ansell’s range is structured around specific application hazards rather than generic product types, which means there is usually a glove designed for a particular task rather than a compromise product that does several things adequately. The HyFlex, AlphaTec and ActivArmr ranges between them cover most industrial hand protection requirements, and the depth within each range, with its different cut levels, chemical resistances, grip profiles and thickness options, reflects serious investment in understanding what workers actually need from their hand protection.

Products We Can Supply from Ansell

HyFlex general purpose and cut-resistant gloves — the HyFlex range is arguably the most recognised work glove range in UK industry. The HyFlex 11-800, a nitrile-coated nylon liner, has been a standard specification for light assembly, material handling and general purpose work for many years. HyFlex cut-resistant variants (11-541, 11-627, 11-644 and others) cover EN ISO 13997 cut levels from A to F, meaning there is a HyFlex glove for everything from light glass handling to heavy metal fabrication.

AlphaTec chemical-resistant gloves — the AlphaTec range covers chemical splash protection, chemical immersion protection and specialist resistance to specific chemical families. Ansell publish breakthrough time data for hundreds of chemicals against each glove model, which is essential information for any COSHH assessment and means you can select the right glove for a specific chemical exposure rather than guessing based on material type alone.

ActivArmr impact and mechanical hazard gloves — the ActivArmr range combines cut, abrasion and impact protection in gloves designed for demanding manual work including oil and gas, mining, construction and heavy manufacturing. Dorsal impact protection on the back of the hand is the key differentiator here, and it is particularly relevant in environments where hands are exposed to dropped objects or crushing hazards.

Disposable gloves — the TouchNTuff range covers disposable nitrile and latex gloves for applications where single-use protection is required: laboratory work, chemical handling, food processing, healthcare maintenance tasks, and light assembly where contamination control matters alongside hand protection.

Industries

Ansell gloves are used across automotive manufacturing and repair, chemical processing, food and beverage production, metal fabrication and engineering, construction, oil and gas, pharmaceutical manufacturing, electronics assembly, laboratory and research, and general manufacturing and logistics. The HyFlex range in particular appears on approved supplier lists across almost every sector that requires hand protection as a standard control measure.