Oven gloves/mitts

I have two hand towels in my kitchen. One is by the oven to use instead of oven gloves and one at other end of kitchen for drying hands. People are not allowed to dry hands on the towel by the oven or else! (Because a damp towel would mean dropping anyhing hot!!)I have never got on with anything designed for getting stuff out of the oven.

I also have arthritic hands so swapped my silicone for long knitted gloves. They are useful with wrist protection when I use my Remoska.
Long knitted oven gloves

These work a treat.

I think I will take your advice and put them in when I do a hot 60 degree wash, a good tossing around may soften them a bit. It's not just the stiffness, they are too big as well (at least for me). I've never been keen on the silicone ones and it seems by your comments they are not as good as they make out. I don't like faffing about putting two separate gloves on, seems to take longer and is annoying when you want to take something out of the oven quickly. Thank you for all your replies.

I've had Sainsbury oven gloves; they are like cardboard and you can't grasp things, especially pyrex. I washed mine quite a few times but they were still too hard. In the end, I went into a cook shop and tried until I found a pair I liked.

I find the mitts dangerous for the same reason so I use an old towel (not a kitchen towel, too thin) and it works a treat.

I’ve just bought new cloth oven gloves and have the same problem. They’re like cardboard!

I thought I’d go back to them after silicon ones because I find with the silicon ones (I have two different types) that they’re not heatproof against anything that’s very hot so taking anything to the table can be a bit painful. Also, I learn that silicon doesn’t cool down quickly so they stay hot for quite a while.

I think washing the clothes gloves is probably the best thing to do.

It took several washes to get my oven gloves soft enough to use. DH uses mitts, silicon based.

We have silicon type mitts They look unwieldy but are very soft. They are the best ones we’ve ever bought. Have never felt any heat through them. (Could be Kevlar material).

I don't like oven gloves but use a long cloth I made from several layers of thick cotton fabric. Much more user friendly. Kind people do give me lovely colourful oven mitts or double gloves but I just prefer my cloth.

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Or maybe a silicone type?

Perhaps washing might soften them?