Flat Black vs Matte Black Is Mostly a Difference in Who Made It

On cabinet hardware, flat black vs matte black is mostly a difference in vocabulary: both are low-sheen black coatings, and the word on the box tells you more about who made the piece than about how it reflects light. Top Knobs calls its version Flat Black; plenty of other makers say matte black for something that looks the same at arm's length. The one situation where the difference becomes real is when you put two makers' blacks side by side, on the same bank of drawers or beside the same appliance. Then small differences in sheen, texture and tint can show, and no label will warn you.

Paint makers measure the difference; hardware makers mostly do not

In paint and coatings, flat and matte do mean different things. Sheen is measured with a gloss meter, and on that scale flat sits at the bottom, with almost no reflection, while matte carries a little more, enough to give a faint soft glow when light hits it at a low angle. Wall paint shoppers meet this every time they choose between a flat and a matte can of the same color.

Cabinet hardware does not work that way. Hardware listings seldom give a gloss reading for a black, and the names are chosen by each brand's catalog, not by a shared scale. So one maker's flat black can carry more sheen than another maker's matte black. I treat the two words as a promise that the finish is not shiny, and nothing more precise than that.

Which makers say flat and which say matte

Our own catalog shows how much the word follows the brand. Our flat black collection is Top Knobs and Schaub and Company, because that is what those two makers call their black. Our matte black collection gathers makers such as Berenson, Elements, Atlas Homewares and Jeffrey Alexander. Amerock and Alno label their low-sheen black as matte black too, and those pieces sit in our broader black hardware collection along with glass and other blacks. If you are hunting for a dead-flat black, search all three, because the shape you want may be filed under whichever word its maker happened to use.

One caution on that broader collection. Some blacks there are not low-sheen at all, and names like black bronze describe a different, warmer finish. I would read the full finish name on the listing, not just the word black.

The differences that do show up between brands

When I lay two brands of low-sheen black next to each other, the differences fall into three kinds, and only the first has anything to do with flat or matte.

• Sheen. Some blacks are close to dead flat and swallow light; others have a soft satin glow along the edges. On its own, either looks like matte black. Side by side, the glowing one looks slightly gray and the flat one looks deeper.
• Texture. Powder coats in particular can carry a fine grain or a faint orange-peel surface, while e-coat and PVD blacks tend to be smoother. You notice this with your fingertips before your eyes, and then you notice it with your eyes forever.
• Tint. Black is rarely pure. Next to each other, one maker's black can lean faintly brown and another's faintly blue or gray, which matters most beside black appliances or a black faucet.

Shape changes how much of this you see. A round knob nearly always catches a highlight somewhere on its curve, so sheen differences between two knobs are hard to spot. Two flat-faced bar pulls side by side are the opposite: their faces catch the light at the same angle at the same moment, and a sheen gap shows clearly.

Read the reflection of the ceiling light before you order

I would not trust product photos here. Black hardware is hard to photograph, so listing images are lit and edited to show the shape, which means two blacks can look identical on screen and different on the door. You need the pieces in hand.

Order a sample first. Samples are sold at the regular price, and once you place your full order we refund up to two samples you did not choose, as long as each was under $20. When the samples arrive, hold each one under a ceiling fixture and tilt it until the fixture shows up in its face. On a dead-flat black you see only a soft, shapeless lightening. On a matte black with a little more sheen you can make out a blurred patch roughly where the fixture is. If you can read the fixture's outline, the finish is closer to satin than either name suggests. Do this with both brands at once, and the gap, if there is one, stops being a matter of opinion.

If the black has to sit next to a black appliance, a black sink or black window frames, repeat the check with the sample held against that surface. Those surfaces have their own sheen, and the hardware will be judged against them every day.

Mixing two brands of black without a visible seam

Plenty of kitchens end up with two makers whether they plan to or not, because one brand does not make the appliance pull length you need or the knob you love. The mistake I see most often is splitting brands inside one bank of drawers. Here is how I would mix instead:

• Keep every piece on a single bank, or on a single run of doors, from one maker. The eye compares neighbors, not distant cabinets.
• Let the second maker supply something that already looks different: appliance pulls on the refrigerator, or the hardware on an island that stands apart from the perimeter.
• If you must put two brands within reach of each other, make one of them knobs. Curved pieces hide sheen differences that flat faces reveal.
• Buy spares in the same order. If one maker later changes its coating, a replacement from the same name may not match the pieces on your doors.

Wear can open a gap that was not there on day one

Low-sheen coatings get shinier where they are handled. Hand oils and repeated rubbing slowly burnish the spot your fingers touch, so the grip area of a well-used pull can end up with more sheen than its ends. Abrasive pads and melamine sponges do the same thing in an afternoon, so clean black hardware with a soft cloth and mild soap. Two brands that matched in the box can drift apart after a few years if their coatings burnish at different rates, which is another reason to keep neighbors from the same maker. On cheaper hardware a powder coat can also wear through at the edges, and PVD black holds up best of the common black finishes. If you are weighing black against bare metal for the most used drawers, I compared those in matte black vs stainless steel.

Choose the shape and the maker, and let the word follow

My advice is not to choose between flat black and matte black as words. Choose the shapes you want, see which maker makes them, and buy as much of the kitchen as you can from that one maker's black. The tradeoff is choice: holding to one brand can rule out a pull you liked from another. When that happens, sample both blacks together under the ceiling light, and give the second brand a job where it does not sit beside the first.