Bright and Shiny Baths Return

Bright is back. After years of matte bathroom fixture finishes, the bright and shiny bathroom fixture has returned in all its gleaming glory. No longer passé, polished chrome denotes a definitive turn for bathrooms and using chrome in the bathroom again can create just the right statement for your bath retreat.
Selecting finishes
Choosing the right fixture for your bathroom usually starts with finding the finish that’s right for your home. The starting point at selecting a finish is with the style of the fixture, whether that’s contemporary or traditional. If you have an old-fashioned claw foot tub, you’d want to select a finish that looks appropriate for a vintage style bath. Accessories are another guiding element in selecting finish. If the lighting and towel bars are brushed nickel, then brushed nickel fixtures make sense. But when it comes to plated chrome finishes, some bathroom styles are natural choices for shiny fixtures.
Design drivers
Bright and shiny finishes are becoming the finish of choice since the introduction of the spa bath. These bathrooms have the feel and appeal of a spa and brightly polished fixtures look terrific here. Likewise, polished fixtures look beautiful in vintage bathrooms and art deco baths. Contemporary bathrooms also are complemented by polished fixtures. Shiny chrome fixtures have an ageless appeal and this could be the driving factor in its resurgence in popularity. It’s also less expensive than bronze, brass, or nickel fixtures. I think there might be another reason, too: it’s clean-looking. More and more people are looking for that clean feeling in their baths. What’s the drawback to gleaming chrome fixtures?
The reason for the appeal – cleaning. American Standard has introduced a new faucet finish called the EverClean™ Faucet Finish that only requires one wipe and no cleaner according to American Standard. They claim the finish doesn’t require abrasives and resists soap and water from adhering to the surface, making them easier to clean without using an abrasive. If you’re thinking of replacing your faucets or selecting a chrome finish, this new faucet finish just might make your cleaning easier. Polished chrome is a beautiful finish but it does require the extra step in cleaning and that’s the step many homeowner’s neglect but that five star hotels get right.
Final cleaning step
I’d always wondered what it is about a hotel kind of clean that’s so appealing and why a hotel often looks so sparkling clean as opposed to a typical home. The first thing that came to mind is that hotels know all about cleaning. Unlike most homeowners, cleaning is what hotels do every single day. Besides the usual making of beds, vacuuming, scrubbing, and dusting, there’s one final thing that hotels do that most homeowners don’t think about and that’s polishing. Yes, polishing is the often overlooked “final act” in cleaning. For instance, a tub faucet might be scrubbed with cleaner, then rinsed, and then forgotten during the typical home style cleaning. However, a hotel maid would take the final step and wipe the faucet off with a soft, dry cloth and polish it to make it spot-free.
If you have polished chrome fixtures, this small extra step is all you need to keep your chrome looking good and make the finish last longer – and make the whole bathroom look and feel cleaner. My cleaning cloth of choice for this is microfiber because of its polishing ability and because it can take dried splatters, like toothpaste, off easily. Polished chrome fixtures are beautiful – and with American Standard’s new EverClean™ finishes and wonderful microfiber cleaning cloths – keeping those fixtures gleaming might not be as difficult as it once was.
Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Red Lotus Letter feng shui e-zine and is dedicated to helping her readers develop successful, prosperous, and supportive environments with feng shui. To subscribe, logon to www.redlotusletter.com and receive this Special Report FREE "16 Feng Shui Secrets for Greater Prosperity."
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