5 Ways To Make Football Gloves Sticky (#3 Solves Problems)

Football gloves are essential for football if you want to play them with maximum performance. Stickiness is the main reason why football gloves are used, as they provide so much more grip on the ball when throwing or receiving. However, the gloves are products as the next, and products have expiration dates. That being said, if your football gloves have lost stickiness, how to make them sticky again?

You can make football gloves sticky in many ways, such as wiping them with baby wipes or spitting on them and rubbing them on a towel or against each other. The best way to add stickiness to football gloves is grip spray. You can also dry the gloves under sunlight to revive some stickiness.

Lucky for us, there are many ways to get stickiness back on the football gloves, so the hope isn’t lost. Although, after a certain point, you will need to get new sticky football gloves as the wear and tear will be too much eventually.

Now, I want to explain how you can gain stickiness on football gloves more in-depth, so you know how to do it and what makes them work. Stick with me, as your football will be on your gloves after reading!

How to Make Football Gloves Sticky Again?

There are four main ways to gain more stickiness to your football gloves and a bonus one that will certainly solve your problems. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

1. Spit On Your Gloves

Many people new to football often ask why do players spit on football gloves. Increased stickiness is the answer! Spitting on the palms of football gloves is the most common and easy method to get stickiness on them.

Simply spit on your gloves, rub them against each other hard to vaporize the moisture, and you will have sticky gloves.

It isn’t the most hygienic and appealing way to do it, but it’s just spitting, you have a game to win, and you can wash your football gloves afterward. Make sure to remove all the moisture from the palms to maximize the added stickiness.

2. Wipe Your Gloves

Wiping your gloves with wet wipes such as Dude Wipes is a great alternative for spitting if that isn’t your style.

The principle is the same. By wetting your gloves and rubbing them together to remove the moisture, you will gain increased tackiness on your gloves.

So how do you do it? Take a wet wipe and go through your palms, fingertips, and any area that touches the football. Rub your gloves together fiercely, and you will have tackiness! This is best done before the game as you won’t have time to do it on the field.

3. Use Grip Spray

My favorite way of adding tackiness to football gloves Is by using grip spray. However, spitting is the way on the field, if you ask me.

Anyways, grip spray like Spin It or gel such as Grip Boost will add more tackiness to the gloves than any of the methods above because it’s engineered and designed for that singular purpose, whereas saliva or wet wipes aren’t.

Grip spray is best used before a game and during halftimes and quarters. Still, it isn’t as effortless as spitting on your gloves!

4. Sun Dry You Gloves

When I speak about sun drying your football gloves, I don’t mean in a way that produces raisins out of grapes or sun-dried tomatoes from regular tomatoes.

Sun-drying your football gloves under direct sunlight for 15 to 30 minutes will add tackiness to them. The science behind it works because high temperatures will vaporize sweat from the gloves that hold back the stickiness.

Don’t leave your football gloves under the sun for days or weeks because they will start to weaken and crumble.

5. Get New Sticky Football Gloves

After a certain point of using your football gloves, there is no going back, and no method will help with the stickiness as they are too worn out. Think about it. If the material on the palms is nearly tearing and all smoothed out, no amount of grip spray or saliva will improve its tackiness.

When this happens, I highly suggest getting new gloves sooner than later so your performance can be what you deserve.

If you’re living that time at the moment, I highly recommend checking out my article on the best football gloves for stickiness . I’m certain you’ll find it valuable.

What Makes Football Gloves Lose Their Stickiness

As great as it’s to have many options on how to replace the stickiness on your football gloves, it’s often important to think about the source and cause of the matter at hand. In our case, we need to consider what makes the gloves lose the stickiness, to begin with?

Football gloves lose their stickiness because of dirt, sweat, and wear. Dirt and sweat will make the gloves slippery, which causes reduced tackiness between your gloves and football. Wear and tear will occur naturally over time, which will reduce the effectiveness of the glove’s material.

To prevent this, it’s important to keep your gloves dust, dirt, and grime-free. Also, wash your gloves consistently to keep gloves’ sweat content at a minimum.

Next, let’s look at all the reasons that make football gloves slippery and not grippy.

1. Dirt

Dirt is one of the two most common reasons football gloves seem to be less tacky than before. Football is a contact sport played outdoors, so dirt, dust, and various particles will be part of the game.

Given that dirt, sand, and other material will be stuck on your glove and between the football, it’s only natural that the stickiness isn’t as good as without the material.

That’s why many football players spit on their gloves to remove the dirt and then rub the gloves against each other to remove the moisture saliva produced. After this process, the dirt and moisture are gone, and the grip is restored.

2. Sweat

When you play a sport as physically demanding as football, sweat is bound to happen in great amounts. The amount each person sweats is personal and varies between people; however, everyone will sweat during a football game.

When you sweat from your hands, it will be absorbed in the glove’s material. Sweat is slimy and wet, so it will again decrease the hold of the gloves as it’s a third variable with the glove and football.

However, some variables can benefit the glove’s rubbery material and football, such as pine tar. This is only an example because pine tar is illegal to use in football, and you can probably understand why.

3. Physical Wear

The third factor why football gloves lose their tackiness is physical wear. Football gloves are products, and all products will have an expiration date.

Before the final expiration date of football gloves, meaning that they are unusable, they will start to lose their grip. This is because the material on the palms and fingertips will start to lose its peak, which decreases the stickiness it can provide.

Physical wear will come from contact with the football, grass, turf, dirt, sand, other people’s equipment, time, and you name it.

Can You Clean Football Gloves?

Football gloves are sticky, at least when you have a proper pair and have taken good care of them. However, if you add water to many sticky things such as pine tar, honey, or even lollipops, they will lose their stickiness, or at least it will be decreased. That makes you think, can you clean football gloves?

Football gloves can and should be washed either by hand or properly on the washing machine. Remember to read the washing instructions inside the glove, use detergent fit for synthetic materials, and air dry the gloves. You shouldn’t use hot water for washing as it can damage the glove’s material.

If football gloves couldn’t be washed because they would lose stickiness, it would be a horrible experience as the gloves can get very dirty and sweaty after just one game. Thankfully, gloves can and should be washed consistently.

I’m sure you want to know all the ins and outs of it as you should. That’s why I highly recommend reading my comprehensive football glove washing guide, where I’ll explain everything!