I always thought of mittens as little kid stuff and it never occurred to me to wear them as an adult. But a few years back my father told me he thinks mittens are a lot better for keeping fingers warm, so I bought a pair from Land’s End, and I agree with him.
Makes sense too, when you think about it, as there’s less finger surface being protected by one layer of material.
Question is why people wear gloves for serious cold situations. Meaning, I can understand why people wearing light insulation for situations where they don’t need much protection anyway would prefer the look of gloves, and possibly even the added use of the non-thumb fingers. But in serious cold situations, e.g. shoveling snow or the like, I don’t see any advantage at all in gloves.
I also feel they keep my fingers warmer than gloves. Any time I can (things that do not require using individual fingers) I’ll pick mittens over gloves any day.
Mittens are good if you have an injured finger and are trying to protect it. They also have lobster claw gloves where two fingers are in one part and the other two fingers are in the other part.
As someone who spends a lot of time outside in the cold weather, I have a variety of both. Mittens are certainly better at keeping your fingers warm, but at the cost of losing manual dexterity. For many activities (such as skiing) that trade off just can’t be justified. I fiddle with too many things and would have to remove my mittens often.
There is a compromise, Split Finger mittens that give you additional flexibility while still keeping your hands quite warm.
I also spend a lot of time outside in winter in Alberta - I usually wear gloves, because after a while when you’re exercising in the cold, your hands get too hot in mittens. It sounds counter-intuitive (“don’t you want to bundle up to your ears outside in the cold?”), but your body produces a lot of heat. What I’ve found works best is knitted gloves and long coat sleeves, so I can pull my hands in out of the wind.
I don’t wear a toque, either - just a headband to keep my forehead and ears warm, and for the same reason - I get too hot with my whole head covered.
I also work outdoors a lot and the other alternative is both. I have a light set of mecahnic’s style gloves for when I have to do fiddley things and a mitten overshell that handles the cold until I get on site (often by quad or ski-doo).
I used to have a pair of fleece-lined gloves that had separate thumb and index finger, but the other three were together. Very warm and very practical.
Another Canadian that uses mittens here! A while back we were gifted with some Hudson’s Bay Company Olympic mittens at work. On regular days I wear a pair of fairly thin gloves. As it gets colder I put the mittens on over top of the gloves. That way I have the added warmth of the mitten but my hands are still mostly protected if I need to take the mittens off to do something with my hands.
Ha! I was just about to post that I use mittens when hunting, and the mittens have a flap for when you need to stick your fingers out. My newest mittens have a compartment for a hand warmer, so my fingers stay nice and warm.
I’ve never used mittens when shoveling snow, though. It seems to me I need the dexterity, but maybe I’m wrong about that.
That problem is that gloves don’t seem to provide adequate dexterity so you end up removing your hand from them anyway. For example you try to put a small nut on a bolt. Neither a mitten nor glove (except very thin one (which isn’t warm) will hold the nut).
We actually sell quite a few of those in adult sizes in our camping and hunting department where I work.
I think people who spend serious time outside during the winter have no problems buying adult mittens, but these days most people are just hurrying between inside a building and inside a vehicle so it keeping the dexterity/styling of gloves might matter more to them.
I just bought a pair of those before Christmas–I call them “convertibles” since they have flip-tops for finger coverage. Convenient for handling small objects or working buttons without taking off (and possibly dropping or losing) a glove/mitten.
