Unlacquered brass starts bright. It does not stay that way. This is a guide to what happens next, what to do about it (mostly nothing), and what never to do.
There are two questions we are asked most often.
The first comes from designers, at the spec stage: will the unlacquered finish hold up?
The second comes from owners, six months in: something is happening to my hardware. Should I be doing something?
Both questions deserve the same answer. Yes, something is happening. No, you should not do anything. What is happening is what the metal was designed to do.
What unlacquered brass is
Lacquered brass has a thin clear coat over its surface — a varnish that keeps the metal looking the way it looked when it left the factory. That coat is what fails first. After two or three years of kitchen use the lacquer thins, cracks at edges, dulls in spots where hands rest. The hardware doesn't age. The coating does. And badly.
Unlacquered brass has no coating. The metal is left to meet the air, the water, the oil from a thumb, the steam from a kettle. What the metal does in response is called patina — a slow, even darkening that starts as a faint amber tint and deepens, over years, into a warm bronze that no factory finish can imitate.
It is the same process that gives door knockers on Georgian townhouses their colour. It is the same thing that turns marine brass green over decades. It is, in our view, the only finish that gets better with time instead of worse.
What to expect
Day one. Bright. Almost yellow-gold. Mirror-polished where the casting was buffed. The new piece looks the way you'd expect new brass to look.
Week one. A barely perceptible warming begins. The brightest highlights soften.
Month two. Fingerprints leave faint marks where they were left — a single pad-print is now visible if you look closely. These are not blemishes. They are the metal beginning to register the hand.
Month six. The piece has noticeably darkened overall. The brightest peaks (top of a knob, leading edge of a cup pull) stay paler — these are where the hand wipes the metal each time you use it, keeping the patina thin. The recessed areas (around fixings, inside the rim of the backplate) darken faster. This contrast is what makes a piece of brass look alive instead of new.
Year one. A soft, even amber. The bright yellow is gone.
Year five. A warm, deep honey-bronze. The piece has its own colour now — not the colour it left the workshop with, but a colour that belongs to the house.
Year ten. Settled. Beautiful. The hardware looks like it has always been there. Visiting eyes assume it is original to the building.
What to do
For routine cleaning: a soft, dry cloth, every few weeks. That is it. Wipe down to remove cooking residue, fingerprints from sticky moments, the day-to-day. The cloth does not remove the patina. It simply keeps the surface clean.
For deep cleaning, twice a year: a slightly damp cloth (water only, wrung out). Dry immediately with a separate dry cloth.
For the kitchen specifically: keep the hardware out of standing water. If a tap drips onto a cup pull, or a wet cloth is left draped across a handle for hours, you may get a small water mark. These usually fade within a week as the surrounding patina catches up.
What never to do
Never use brass polish on unlacquered brass. Brasso, Wenol, Goddard's, any commercial polish — they all contain abrasives that strip the patina overnight. You will return a five-year-old, beautifully bronzed knob to its day-one yellow. It will then take five more years to come back.
Never use vinegar, lemon, or ketchup. Internet guides recommend these for “restoring shine”. They will indeed restore shine. They will also etch the metal surface, leaving the brass with a faintly pitted texture that does not patina evenly afterwards.
Never use scouring pads, melamine sponges (Magic Eraser), or any abrasive.
Never wipe with a cloth that has been used on cleaning chemicals. Even a residual film of bleach or limescale remover, picked up from worktop spray, will mark unlacquered brass within minutes.
If you want a piece restored
You can. Use a soft cloth and a small amount of standard brass polish, work for thirty seconds, wipe clean. The patina will lift; the underlying brass will be bright again. Then the process restarts. We have customers who do this every few years, returning specific pieces to their original brightness as a deliberate rhythm. We have other customers who have never done it once. Both are correct. Brass is patient.
A short note on the other two finishes
Aged Brass is a pre-patinated finish — it arrives looking like a five-year unlacquered piece. It is for owners who want the settled appearance from day one and don't want to wait for time to deliver it.
Satin Brass (lacquered) is the kitchen-resilient finish — a brushed surface, sealed under a clear coat, that holds its tone for years. It is the finish for high-traffic family kitchens where the unlacquered story isn't wanted. We make it because it is honest about what it is.
The unlacquered story is the long one. It is the one we think makes brass worth the price you pay for it.
The Founders Collection, the Guild Collection, and the Forge Collection are all available in Polished Unlacquered Brass. Explore Founders → Explore Guild → Explore Forge →
