Detail Blogs

As a left-hander, you must have learnt—pretty early in your life—to adjust yourself to products designed for right-handers.

Only 13% of the people globally are left-handed. Therefore, due to negligible demand of left-handed products and traditional bias and stereotypes about left-handers, most products are designed for efficient use by right-handed people.

Can’t left-handers use the same products comfortably?

No, they can’t. In fact, using products, which are meant for right-handers can cause difficulties, pain or, sometimes even a severe injury to any left-handed person.

Thankfully, times have changed; a few products have arrived in the market that are specifically meant for you and all other left-handers of this world.

But before we tell you about the 7 best left-handed products, let’s understand why left-handers need specially-designed products in the first place.

Need for left-handed tools

Almost all products are designed to provide unmatchable level of comfort and user-friendliness to right-handers. However, for left-handers, benefits transpose to drawbacks.

For instance, scissors are designed in such a way that a right-handed person’s fingers and thumb push the blades together laterally. It creates the shearing action which is crucial for cutting a line. A person can easily see the cutting line as well.

But when a left-hander uses a scissor, their fingers and thumb force right-handed blades apart. The scissor slips away from their hand. To compensate for it, they have to force the handles apart laterally, which may cause discomfort or result in an injury to the first knuckle of the thumb.

Besides, the upper blade obscures the view, providing even more hindrance to the person.

Similarly, while writing, you must have often smudged your writing and inked your hands. Since English (and various other languages) are written from left to right, and left-handers’ hand follow the ink, it leaves your hand inked and writing smudged. A left-handed person can’t see what they are writing at times as the hand comes in between the eyeline and the word being written, and for that reason some of the left handers adopt a hooked hand posture for writing.

The hooked movement adopted for writing with left hand is not healthy in the long run and may affect the speed of writing.

But… but… but…

Time to feel excited.

Here are 7 products specifically meant for you (and all other left-handers) that will make you fall in love with them instantly:

Left-Handed pen

Learning to write with left hand – neatly and legibly – has always been a challenge, right?

No more smudge. No more hindrance in writing effortlessly.

These pens are especially designed for left-handers. The curved barrel provides better visibility to left-handers to see what they are writing without hooking or twisting their wrist around. The triangular, soft anti-slip material ensures natural writing posture and eliminates chances of cramps or other hand injuries.

The most amazing characteristic of these pens is the fast-drying ink that prevents smudging and smearing, and makes your writing look beautiful and neat.

Scissors

Cutting might have been nearly-impossible for you before, but not anymore! The scissors for left-handers are designed with extra caution. Here, the blades are reversed. The cutting action of a left-hander pushes the blades together so that you can cut a paper or a cloth easily.

The scissors fit well in the left hand, and you can easily see through the cutting line.

You can hold and use these scissors for prolonged hours without hurting your thumb or injuring the knuckle of your fingers.

Sharpener

With a common sharpener Left-handers hold their pencil in the right hand and turn the sharpener anti-clockwise in their left hand (the natural movement for a left-hander) to sharpen the pencil. Well, what would you expect to happen… nothing, of course; it only leaves lead powder on your hand.

But don’t worry! The must-have MyLeft pencil sharpener allows you to sharpen a pencil with your left hand. The reverse blade lets you turn the pencil in your natural anti-clockwise direction, with your dominant hand.

Geometry Box

Is your child a left-hander? Give them a special gift—the all-in-one geometry box. It contains a ruler, a triangular eraser, a metallic sharpener and 2 pencils.

With the usual ruler, left-handers face difficulties in drawing a line since they have to push the pencil from left to right (as opposed to the convenient ‘pull’ of right-handers).

But with the specially-designed left-handed ruler, one could draw a line from the right while pulling the pencil towards them, allowing to go by their natural hand movement.

The sharpener, as we saw above, lets one sharpen pencils in the counter-clockwise direction, while the pencils can be comfortably handled with left hand.

Writing training clipboard

How many times has a paper slipped out when you tucked it under the clipboard at a certain angle to write easily with your left hand?

The “MyLeft WriteSmart Clipboard” has been designed to solve this problem. It is made up of Leatherite material and provides the guides for correct position and angle to you while writing.

If your kid is studying in a pre-primary or primary class, this clipboard will improve his/her writing style and correct any wrong posture.

Kitchen Knives

Oooouch! A sound you must be familiar with, particularly if you spend most of your time doing household chores in the kitchen. You might have got your knuckles or fingers injured and cut while using the common right-handed kitchen tools.

But these kitchen knives are different. They have a blade sharpened symmetrically at the top and bottom so that both right-handers and left-handers can use these knives. The knife’s blade is made up of stainless steel (you’re right, it’s German).

For cutting and chopping fruits, vegetables, fish, chicken, breads… these knives will prove to be an unbiased companion for both lefties and righties.

Batting Gloves

Four… six… century… what a proud moment for everyone! Batting looks flawless when a batsman times every ball from the middle of his bat. But is it even possible if the gloves don’t fit well into the hands?

Probably the most popular of left-handed products are the batting gloves. Visit any sports store and enquire – the salesman will rightly want to know your dominant hand.

Get the batting gloves for left-handers and enjoy your sport. The palm of these gloves is made from high quality leather.

Also, a three-piece side bar protection at the bottom provides due resistance against lethal fast bowling.

Are left-hand products readily available in India?

Very few retailers on Amazon or other e-commerce platforms sell left-handed products. Most of the times, products marketed as “for left-handers” are, in reality, ambidextrous products, meant for both right-handers and left-handers.

If parents have to buy stationery or any other items for their left-handed children, they have to import these items from outside India which is both time-consuming and expensive.

Don’t worry! The Left hand Shop comes to your rescue.

Started by Mrs. Sandeep Pavitter Singh in 2016, The Left Hand Shop sells school stationery, knives & scissors and cricketing equipment from local and international brands, specifically designed for left-handers. The company also sells various products under its own brand, MyLeft.

Although marketing and selling left-handed products in India at low cost is an uphill battle due to lack of demand and awareness, The Left hand Shop sells products at low cost so that everyone can afford them.

So, go ahead, buy the products especially designed for left-handers for yourself or your left-handed kid, family member, or friend, and make life easier. With these, every day could be left-hander’s day.

And whoever said we should put up with right-handed products!

Which of these products would be most helpful for you? Let us know in the comments!