Black Diamond Mercury Mitts – Test and Review

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Updated May 8th, 2024

Manufacturer and Model: Black Diamond Equipment Mercury Mitts
List Price: $119.95

Summary

The Black Diamond Mercury Mitts have thick wooly feeling Primaloft insulation along with a BD.fit waterproof insert to keep your hands warm and dry. They work well skiing down to very cold temperatures under 20F. They are among the warmest mittens I have skied with. They do not have some extra features such as touch screen compatible thumb or fingers or wrist straps. If your primary goal is a very warm set of mittens then the Black Diamond Mercury Mitts are a great choice.

Black Diamond Mercury Mitts Review and Test

I picked up a set of Mercury Mitts after seeing my husband’s Black Diamond Guide Gloves. I loved the thick wooly feeling insulation and thick durable goat leather palms. I prefer skiing with mittens over gloves. I wanted something warmer than my current mittens. I wasn’t really impressed by any of the heated gloves we tried this winter. The Mercury Mitts are the closest mittens to the Guide Gloves so we ordered a set.

We purchased the Mercury Mitts on our own for this review. As with all reviews, we’ll give you all the good and bad points whether we bought the item ourselves or it was given to us.

See our guide to the best ski gloves for other great options.

Features Overview

The Mercury Mitts are designed to be a really warm set of mittens with a published temperature range of -25F to 10F. They use thick heavy wooly feeling Primaloft insulation and have a waterproof insert and coating to keep them dry inside. They have a shell with a removable insulated liner. You can take the liner out to make drying easier after a wet or sweaty day.

They are not the warmest set of mittens that Black Diamond Makes. They have the Absolute Mitts which are a step warmer with a rated temperature range of -40F to -20F. We ordered a set of Absolute Mitts and they are very large and thick. The cuff went up close to my elbow when I put them on. They are overkill for resort skiing so we returned them. If you want the very warmest possible mittens, have a look at the Black Diamond Absolute Mitts.

1 – Warmth (9.0/10)

The Mercury Mitts have a lot of insulation in their removable liners. They use Primaloft 170g on the back of the hands and 133g on the palms. They have a fuzzy wooly feeling on the inside. On the mountain they are warm. The insulation does a good job of wicking sweat away and staying warm all day. I usually use chemical hand warmers with most mittens and gloves but didn’t need them until it got down to less than 20F. At that point, I don’t really enjoy skiing anymore. These mittens do a very good job keeping my hands warm.

2 – Dexterity (7.0/10)

They have a lot of insulation inside but they don’t feel that stiff. They still feel soft and easy to move my hands in. I was expecting a stiffer feel closer to our Black Diamond Guide Gloves and am happy they don’t feel that stiff. They are still mittens so you can only do so much with your fingers. I prefer mittens for their warmth and am willing to give up a little finger dexterity.

3 – Water Resistance (9.0/10)

The Mercury Mitts use a Black Diamond BD.dry insert instead of a Goretex insert. The shell is coated with GTT Empel DWR which is a PFC free water repellant. It does a good job of keeping the gloves water. It passed our running water test and is holding up so far under use.

4 – Construction (8.0/10)

The mittens are well made and use goat leather for the palms. The thumb joint where you would hold skis or poles is reinforced with a second layer of leather. They are not as beefy looking with stitching as the Black Diamond Guide Gloves are. The Mercury Mitts are not designed for mountaineering use like the Guide Gloves. I expect they will hold up to years of use resort skiing.

5 – Features (8.5/10)

The Mercury Mitts are designed to be warm with thick insulation. They do warm very well. They do not have a touch screen compatible finger or thumb patch. They don’t have any zipper vents. There are no wrist straps included. They do have tabs where you can attach wrist straps if you want them. I never use them so this doesn’t bother me. They do have elastic around the wrists to keep them tight. They have a cinch bungee around the cuff so you can tighten them to keep snow out.

Recommendation – Buy or No Buy?

If you want a good set of mittens with thick insulation that will keep your hands warm and dry then buy the Black Diamond Mercury Mitts. They have solid construction with leather palms and heavy wooly feeling insulation on the inside.

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