How condoms are made

Compound the latex

Liquid latex goes into mixing tanks with water, stabilizers, preservatives and vulcanizing chemicals, each ground evenly first. One maker holds the blend at 54 °C for 12 to 13 hours, then moves it to supply tanks at 18 to 20 °C.

Dip the glass formers

Clean glass formers ride a continuous chain, often in double rows, down into a temperature-controlled tank. They rotate as they come up so the thin film spreads evenly. Ribbed or studded formers give textured styles.

Dry and dip again

Each film dries in an oven, cools, and goes back for another dip, which builds up the wall. Factories differ on the count: one describes two dips, another three.

0.06-0.08 mm wall

Roll the rim

At a beading station the open end of the film rolls up on itself into the ring that makes the product easy to put on.

Vulcanize in the oven

The formers pass through an oven at about 100 to 120 °C. Heat finishes the reaction between rubber and curing chemicals, and that reaction gives the film its strength and stretch.

Strip and wash

Water jets push the film off the glass. Washing takes away water-soluble residue, and a safe powder stops the condoms from sticking to one another.

Test each one electronically

Each condom is stretched over a metal former and put under high voltage. A flaw too small to see lets current through and the machine rejects that piece. One maker checks the test machines themselves every half hour.

Burst and leak test samples

Samples from each batch are inflated with air, typically taking 40 liters before they burst, and others are filled with 300 ml of water and hung for a minute to look for leaks.

Seal in foil

Passed condoms are lubricated, inspected once more as they are packed, and sealed in foil, then stored somewhere cool and dry until shipping.