Handling and hand tools
Heatproof gloves
A convenience unless you cook on multiple levels or lift hot inner baskets, in which case it stops being one.
AirfryerHQ’s verdict
A convenience, not a capability
Makes something slightly easier that was already possible. Buy it if you want it, not because you need it.
The drawer has an insulated handle, and everything inside it can be reached with tongs. Gloves become genuinely useful in exactly two situations: lifting a hot inner basket out of a drawer to tip it, and reaching between shelves in an oven-style machine where an oven glove is too bulky. If you do neither, an ordinary tea towel has been doing this job in kitchens for two hundred years.
What it actually does
Lets you grip hot metal parts directly with something more dexterous than an oven mitt.
Silicone or aramid gloves that let you grip hot metal directly. Most air-fryer tasks are done with a drawer handle and a pair of tongs, which is why this is not on the essential list.
When it helps and when it does not
When it helps
- Lifting a hot inner basket out of its drawer, which tongs do badly and a tea towel does dangerously
- Oven-style machines, where reaching between shelves needs more precision than an oven glove allows
- Removing hot racks, tins or dishes from inside the chamber
When it gets in the way
- Ordinary basket cooking, where the handle is insulated and the tongs reach everything
- Anything needing fine grip — silicone gloves are noticeably clumsier than bare hands with tongs
What to use instead
A dry tea towel or the oven gloves already in the kitchen. Dry is the operative word: a damp cloth on hot metal turns to steam and steam burns.
Which machines it suits
Makes sense in: Oven-style air fryer, Countertop oven with air fry, Basket air fryer, Dual-basket air fryer.
Looking after it
Check them for splits and for grease saturation. A glove that has soaked up cooking fat is a glove that will conduct heat rather than resist it.
Evidence and confidence
- Applies to
- Applies generally
- Why this rating
- The verdict is deliberately low. This is a real tool that solves a real but narrow problem, and the honest framing is that most readers already own something adequate. Naming the two cases where it is genuinely better is more useful than a recommendation either way.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-30
What this does not cover
- No glove has been assessed, and no temperature rating is claimed for any product.
- AirfryerHQ has not bought, fitted or used any accessory. Every judgement here is reasoned from what the accessory does physically and from what manufacturers publish about it.
Sources (2)
Breville Halo Rotisserie Air Fryer Oven VDF127 — Instruction Manual (PDF)
Breville (Newell Brands) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: That an oven-style air fryer's normal cooking surfaces are racks inside a cavity, which is the architecture where reaching in is a real handling problem rather than a theoretical one.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 961/3931.
AirfryerHQ assessment of airflow, element proximity and material behaviour
AirfryerHQ — Calculated or inferred by AirfryerHQ (Not jurisdictional)
Relied on for: The mechanism this is read against: forced convection, boundary-layer disruption and a small chamber.
AirfryerHQ's interpretation of what it says
Citation checked — the document exists and is described correctly
AirfryerHQ sells nothing and earns nothing here. There are no affiliate links, no sponsored placements and no brand recommendations anywhere in this section. The verdict above is what we think, arrived at before anybody asked whether it would sell anything.
Worth reading
Others in this category
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Oil sprayer
Good for coating food evenly with very little oil. At least one manufacturer forbids spraying it into the chamber, and aerosol cooking sprays damage non-stick coatings.
Genuinely useful
Silicone-tipped tongs
The accessory that protects the most expensive part of the appliance, and manufacturers are unusually united about it.