Gloves are one of those everyday things that you don't think of until you realise that you desperately need them for something. With that in mind, it's good to have a little knowledge so that you'll be prepared for that glove emergency that's bound to come up one of these days - maybe even sooner than you think.

Gloves have two main purposes: warmth and protection (although some would probably add a third, style).

Warm gloves are made of insulating materials, such as cheap nylon or more expensive wool, often mixed with a specialist material (3M's Thinsulate, for example) for added warmth. You will generally need a pair of warm gloves in the winter, and you need to take them with you if you are going on holiday somewhere cold - more than one traveller has ended up somewhere far north in the world, wishing that they'd remembered to pack their gloves.

Protective gloves are slightly rarer than warm ones, but they are no less essential. They are used in industry, in professions where you handle materials that are unsanitary (cleaning) or dangerous (blades, for example). While a pair of rubber gloves can come very cheap, gloves that protect against injury are often more expensive, as they need to be reinforced with a very strong material - often strands of steel or some other hard metal.

Of course, if you're one of those people who is after gloves for style, then you're spoilt for choice at every end of the market. There is an amazing array of glove styles, from various cultures' traditional gloves, to brightly-coloured or patterned ones. Many gloves have parts strategically missing, such as the fingertips, to allow you to look good in them but not have to take them off to do practical things. If you're shopping for stylish gloves, instead of getting the dull insulating models from a larger shop, it's generally much better to go to a street market, or even look on the Internet, to try to find something a bit more unique.