Materials & Standards
Bathrooms are the most hostile room in a house.
Constant humidity, daily temperature swings, hard water, and cleaning products designed to strip things. Most fixtures aren't built for it — they're built to look right in a showroom and survive the warranty period.
Here's what we use, and why.
Brass valve bodies
The valve is the working heart of a shower system, and it's the first thing most manufacturers cheapen — precisely because nobody inspects it at the point of sale.
Our wall-mounted shower columns use brass in the mixer body. Brass resists the corrosion that destroys cheaper zinc alloy, and it holds a thread properly, so fittings stay sealed through years of thermal cycling.
ABS, used honestly
Some parts should be plastic. A handheld shower you hold at arm's length for ten minutes shouldn't be made of solid metal — your wrist will tell you why.
Where we use ABS, it's because light is genuinely better: handheld heads and spray plates. It's impact-resistant, it doesn't corrode, and it keeps the weight where it belongs.
What we won't do is use plastic for a structural part and finish it to look like metal.
Finishes
Matte black is the finish people regret most. Most of it is a single sprayed coat over pot metal, and it wears through at the edges where hands touch it. Ours is a multi-layer baked coating over a properly prepared substrate — but it still needs care: no abrasives, no bleach-based cleaners, ever. They leave permanent shine marks.
Polished silver and chrome are the most forgiving finishes there are. They wipe clean, they don't yellow, and they tolerate almost any cleaner. If you want something you never have to think about, choose one of those.
Silicone nozzles and bristles
Hard water leaves mineral deposits on any shower head. The difference is whether you can remove them.
Rigid nozzles trap deposits and the spray gradually scatters — which is why old shower heads spray sideways. Flexible silicone tips release buildup when you rub them with your thumb under running water. It takes about five seconds and restores the spray pattern completely.
The scalp bristles on the Ellery use the same food-grade silicone — soft enough for daily use on colour-treated hair.
What we're honest about
The Ellery's filter is a multi-stage cartridge of layered mineral media. It catches sediment — rust flakes and grit carried through older pipework — and takes the edge off chlorine taste and smell.
It is not a water softener, and it will not change your water's hardness. Plenty of products in this category imply otherwise. We'd rather tell you exactly what it does and let you decide whether that's worth it.
The cartridge discolours as it loads, which is how you know when to change it. Every two to three months in normal use.
Where things are made
Our products are manufactured in China, as is almost everything in this category including most premium-branded fixtures sold in Europe and North America.
What differs between brands is not the country — it's the specification, the material grades, and how much of the cost goes into the parts you can't see. That's where we spend it.
Questions about a specific product's construction? Ask us — we'll tell you exactly what it's made of.