The Skull Hands boxing gloves line offers two products built for different situations, and the choice between them comes down to one thing: genuine leather versus vinyl.
The leather Boxing Gloves are the flagship. Skull Hands produces them in León, Guanajuato, a city with a deep tradition in artisan leather goods and a long connection to boxing equipment manufacturing in Mexico. That background shows in the construction: hand-finished seams, a genuine leather shell, and a fit that improves with use rather than degrading from the first session. The leather stretches and molds to your hand over time, holds its shape under the repeated impact of bag and pad work, and resists the cracking and peeling that comes with hard use on synthetic materials. These are handmade boxing gloves built to last under regular training, not to impress on the shelf.
They come in 12, 14, and 16 oz, each available in velcro or lace-up. Twelve oz is a pad-work and speed weight, useful for drilling with a coach who wants faster combinations. Fourteen oz handles most adult training sessions on bags and mitts, and works for light sparring. Sixteen oz is the sparring standard in most boxing gyms, and if you spar more than occasionally, the 16 oz leather model is the version that makes sense. The lace-up closure locks the wrist more securely than velcro, which matters in sparring when a tight fit affects how the glove absorbs and distributes impact. You'll need someone to tie them before rounds. For bag work alone, velcro is completely functional.
The Vinyl Boxing Gloves are the second model in this line. Vinyl is a coated synthetic material, not genuine leather, and that distinction matters in practice. The vinyl surface works adequately for bag rounds, pad work, and general gym use, but it doesn't hold up to the cumulative impact of regular sparring the way leather boxing gloves do. Padding compresses and loses responsiveness faster under repeated punching force, and the outer coating is more susceptible to scuffing and peeling at high training volume. These are a reasonable choice for someone who hits the bag a few times a week, or as a first pair before committing to the leather tier. They're not the right call if sparring is a regular part of your schedule.
Both models share the same 12/14/16 oz and velcro/lace-up structure, so the closure and weight decisions are identical across tiers. Material is the whole split.
One thing worth knowing about handmade boxing gloves from smaller artisan brands: slight variation in weight, stitching, and color tone is normal and expected. Skull Hands produces in smaller runs, and that means each pair can have minor cosmetic differences from product images. This doesn't affect performance, but it's a different experience from buying a mass-produced brand engineered for consistency.
If you're deciding between the two: choose the leather Boxing Gloves if you train more than twice a week or spar regularly, because the leather construction handles accumulated impact without breaking down the way vinyl does. The Vinyl Boxing Gloves are the better fit if you're starting out, training light, or buying a secondary pair for casual bag sessions, because the lower price and the vinyl's durability are matched to that lower training load.
Honest take: the 16 oz lace-up in leather is the best version of these gloves for anyone who spars. It's heavier than most buyers initially want and requires a training partner to tie, but those are the features that make it the right tool for contact sparring. If sparring isn't your situation, the 14 oz velcro in leather handles most training needs without the friction.
