Mint’s Ultimate Glove Review – “The Cutter”

There are three types of people in this world, those who wear Ultimate Frisbee gloves, those who don’t, and those who don’t have hands. Let’s face it, the majority lies within those who don’t wear gloves. I was one of those people. I relied on my good ‘ol fleshy hands for pretty much my entire Ultimate career. Although wearing Ultimate gloves improved catching, my biggest complaint was that they greatly reduced my throwing capability. Mint’s Ultimate Gloves are here to change that.

I was fortunate enough to take these bad boys for a test drive. These are the Fourth updated version of the already fantastic gloves. Below, I have personally ranked Mint’s Ultimate Gloves on four categories that I see most important; Catching, Throwing, Fit, and Quality.

As you are probably aware, catching is extremely important in our sport. These gloves feature synthetic leather on the palms and fingers that stick to the disc. The leather is soft and smooth to the touch but somehow it seems to stick to the disc’s plastic pretty well. The very essence of catching is to be able to stop the discs rotation to gain control of it. These gloves vastly improve catching ability in both wet and dry conditions.

What the gloves are great for is playing in wet environments. It seems like water activates the leather to become stickier. They perform extremely well in both light or heavy rain or when the disc is just wet from morning dew. The other cool thing is that the gloves barely retain any water, what the means is your hand do not feel heavy when the gloves are wet.

They also perform very well in dry environments. Mint’s gloves will slightly improve your catching compared to just your hand, but there is not a significant difference when dry . BUT, the gloves actually get a little stickier after you start to sweat from the inside of the glove, which is a convenient feature considering sweat is pretty common in our sport.

However, I have tried multiple Ultimate Frisbee gloves and they all manage to increase catching ability in inclement weather. What makes these gloves better than the competition is how they handle after you make the catch. Which brings us to our next topic..

To me, this category is the most important. Gloves are great for catching but they are useless if they negatively affect throwing. This is where Mint’s gloves beat out the competition. They fit tightly to my hand and tightly around all of my fingers. The fabric is sewn in a way that follows the exact shape of my fingertips so there is no extra fabric hanging off.

Most palms on Ultimate gloves are tacky. As mentioned earlier, Mint’s gloves use synthetic leather that is perfectly smooth to the touch. This allows you to release the disc without a ridiculous amount of friction holding it back. In fact, I felt like I had more control when throwing. It is the perfect amount of friction for throwing.

The main selling point here is how the gloves handle in inclement weather. If you have ever tried to long-throw a wet disc you will know that accuracy and power suffer greatly. Obviously this is because friction plays a big role in giving the disc the spin needed for flight. Now imagine what it’s like to throw in perfectly dry weather with dry hands, easy right? Wearing Mint’s gloves gave me the ability to throw as if I had dry hands no matter the weather. If it’s raining, snowing, muddy, or just early morning dew, you will throw as if you had dry hands. Even if you are not a glove enthusiast, I recommend at least throwing these gloves in your Ultimate bag for those wet games. They will vastly improve your handling.

Upon putting the glove on for the first time I was surprised how nicely they fit my hand. They hugged the webbing between my thumb and pointer finger along with all of my other fingers. They were tight, but there are spandex seams strategically placed to allow for flexibility. I like the fact that there is no extra fabric hanging off anywhere. The entire glove morphs exactly to the dimensions of my hand. You can see in the above picture that the glove is tightly around my wrist, my knuckles are distinct through the fabric, where the glove bends/crinkles is still tight to my hand, and that thumb? That thumb is the damn sexiest thumb I have ever seen.

The velcro fastener allows you to secure the glove to your hand. There is no flexible fabric on the wrist so once the velcro is fastened there is no way to squeeze your hand back out of the glove without unfastening it. This is a great design feature because it secures the glove to your hand. You can do a full-sprint layout and the gloves do not twist or come off. They stay exactly how they were with no readjusting. It actually feels like your not even wearing gloves most of the time.

Honestly, I feel bad for Mint. These gloves retail for $35. I feel as if I am stealing money from them at that price. If I handed you this glove and said guess the price you would say somewhere around $60 or more. I cannot stress enough that for a $35 investment you vill vastly improve your game, your style, and probably your number of friends. What you are paying for are the materials and craftsmanship. The updated (fourth version) of the gloves uses synthetic leather which is extremely durable and noticeably more flexible than other types of leathers.

The back of the gloves are made of a flexible/breathable high-end spandex material designed to be super stretchy. There are strategically place spandex on the palm to add comfortably and reduce tears in the leather. The thumb-piece is actually a towel material made specifically for wiping sweat from the face. The fact that these gloves also work on your touchscreen is a very nice touch, pun intended. Overall, these are the BMW of Ultimate Frisbee Gloves and they set the bar high for any competitors. If you are serious about the sport you should be serious about your gloves. Dropping $35 bucks on quality gloves that will last 2+ years is cheaper than buying $20 gloves that will barely last a season.

In Conclusion

Ultimate Frisbee gloves are an interesting topic. We play a sport that requires extremely limited equipment. Pretty much just a Disc and friends is all you need to get a game going. Now, the game is getting a bit more serious across the world. Cleats and certain Apparel have been added to that list of equipment needed. Ultimate gloves have started to gain traction (no pun intended) in pro leagues and college-level Ultimate. There are a few glove companies out there but if you want a glove that doesn’t suck, then Mint’s is the way to go. I believe Mint’s Ultimate Glove is the start of new beginning. Putting a glove on before a game will coincide with putting your cleats on.

****I’d also like to mention that with 4 Mint gloves released, this is the fourth review-refreshment that these gloves have received. With each review Mint has always scored a 5 in two of four categories and slightly lower in the remaining two. This is the first review where they received a perfect score in all four categories. And believe me, I tried to find something to criticize. These gloves are perfect, bestowed upon us from the big disc in the sky we all worship. So bravo Mint, bravo.