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.

Solid brass valves

The valve is the part you never see and can't easily replace. It sits inside the wall, and when it fails you're opening tiles to reach it.

It's also the first thing most manufacturers cheapen, precisely because nobody inspects it at the point of sale.

Our concealed and wall-mounted systems use solid brass valve bodies. Brass resists the corrosion that destroys cheaper zinc alloy, and it holds a thread properly, so fittings stay sealed through years of thermal cycling.

304 stainless steel

304 is the stainless grade specified for wet, corrosive environments. It's what commercial kitchens and marine fittings are made from.

Cheaper bathroom hardware is usually plated mild steel. It looks identical on day one. Then moisture reaches the base metal through the fixing holes, and it blisters and rusts outward — typically inside two years.

Our hardware sets are thickened 304 stainless. Heavier than they need to be, because the weight is what tells you it's solid rather than hollow.

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, portable sets, 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 applied over properly prepared substrate — but it still needs care: no abrasives, no bleach-based cleaners, ever. They leave permanent shine marks.

Polished chrome is the most forgiving finish there is. It wipes clean, it doesn't yellow, and it tolerates almost any cleaner. If you want something you never have to think about, choose chrome.

Multi-layer baked paint on our hardware sets gives depth of colour a single coat can't, and it chips far less readily at edges and corners.

Silicone nozzles

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.

What we're honest about

Our shower heads contain a sediment filter — a screen that catches rust flakes and grit carried through older pipework.

It is not a chlorine filter, and it does not soften water. Plenty of products in this category imply otherwise. We'd rather tell you exactly what it does.

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.