After curating 1,000+ products across 7 design styles and installing somewhere north of 400 individual cabinet pulls, knobs, and faucets across our Denver properties, we have strong opinions about hardware finishes. Brass and matte black are the two finishes clients ask about most, and the answer to “which is better” is more interesting than the design blogs suggest.
The short version: brass ages better, matte black photographs better, and the wrong choice in either direction is the single most common reason a kitchen renovation looks dated within three years.
Is brass hardware out for 2026?
No. Unlacquered, living-finish brass is more popular in 2026 than it was in 2022, and the trend is still climbing. What’s out is shiny, lacquered, yellow-gold brass — the kind that came on every flip from 2018 to 2021.
The distinction is critical. “Brass” covers at least four finishes that look like different metals: polished brass (mirror-shiny, yellow-gold, dated), satin brass (warm matte gold, still going strong), antique brass (darker, slightly red-brown, classic), and unlacquered brass (raw metal that patinas naturally to a brown-black over years, the current darling of design Instagram).
We’ve put unlacquered brass in three Denver kitchens since 2023 and the patina is genuinely beautiful. Guests photograph it. Designers compliment it. The maintenance is zero — you just let it age. A polished-brass knob from the same project would already look five years old at the two-year mark.
If you’re worried about brass being a trend, look at what historic homes have used for the past 200 years. Brass is the closest thing to a permanent finish in residential design. The trend cycle is on the specific shade and sheen, not on brass itself.
unlacquered solid brass cabinet pulls 5 inch center to center
Does matte black actually hide fingerprints?
No. Matte black shows fingerprints worse than almost any other finish, and the marketing claim that it “hides smudges” is one of the most repeated wrong things on home blogs.
What matte black actually does is hide water spots and toothpaste splatter, which is why it’s popular in bathrooms. But fingerprints — the oily kind from cooking — show up as visible smears on matte black hardware within 20 minutes of use. We installed matte black pulls on a navy lower cabinet in our Capitol Hill rental and had to wipe them down between every guest turnover. After eight months, we replaced them with antique brass and the cleaning time dropped by half.
The fingerprint issue is worse on cheap matte black hardware specifically. Better matte black uses a powder-coat finish that’s slightly less prone to oil retention. The cheap stuff is a sprayed paint that grabs every fingerprint. If you’re going matte black, look for powder-coated zinc or stainless steel underneath, not painted aluminum.
Matte black has a separate problem people don’t talk about: in any room with warm-temperature lighting (and most homes use 2700K bulbs), it reads as a dark void. It doesn’t reflect light, it absorbs it. In a small kitchen with limited natural light, this can make the cabinets feel heavier and the room feel smaller. Brass throws light back around. Black sucks it in.
powder coated matte black cabinet pulls modern minimalist
Can you mix brass and matte black in the same room?
Yes, and we do it constantly — but only with one specific rule: pick one as the dominant finish (80% of the visible hardware) and use the other only as an accent on a single feature.
The failure mode we see in DIY kitchens is treating the two as equal. Brass cabinet pulls plus matte black faucet plus matte black light fixtures plus brass drawer knobs reads as indecision, not intentional contrast. The eye has nothing to land on, and the kitchen looks like the homeowner couldn’t make up their mind.
The configuration that works: matte black as the architectural metal (faucet, light fixtures, range hood, window frames if applicable) and brass as the hand-touch metal (cabinet pulls, drawer knobs, the visible parts of the kitchen island). Or the inverse: brass for architectural elements and matte black hardware as a single grounding element.
We’ve used the brass-pulls-on-black-cabinets combination in two of our properties and it photographs better than anything we’ve ever installed. The contrast is high enough that the brass reads as jewelry against the black. The opposite — black pulls on white cabinets — works too, but it’s been so overdone since 2019 that it no longer reads as design-forward.
One caveat: don’t mix brass and matte black in a powder room or any small space under 50 square feet. The visual conflict in a tight space turns busy fast. Pick one finish and commit.
aged brass cabinet knob round 1 inch diameter set of 10
Which hardware finish photographs best?
Brass photographs best in homes with warm light and natural materials (wood, linen, terracotta). Matte black photographs best in homes with cool light, white walls, and high-contrast palettes. Neither photographs well under 4000K LED bulbs.
For short-term rental listing photos specifically, we’ve found brass produces more clicks. The brass kitchen photos in our listings have a 7-9% higher click-through rate than the matte black ones, controlling for everything else. Our theory is that brass reads as warm and inviting, which is what people search for in a vacation rental. Matte black reads as urban and minimalist, which is a smaller audience.
Professional real estate photographers we’ve worked with have a strong preference for brass for the same reason. It catches and reflects light, which means more highlights in the photo, which means a more dynamic image. Matte black is a flat tone that the camera reads as a dark blob unless lit perfectly.
If your hardware is going to be photographed (Airbnb listing, Zillow, design portfolio), this matters. If it’s just for daily use, photograph-ability is irrelevant.
Our recommendation for each style
Modern farmhouse: Aged brass or oil-rubbed bronze. Skip both polished brass and matte black; they fight the warm-wood-and-linen palette farmhouse depends on.
Mid-century modern: Satin brass cabinet pulls (the long, slim European style) with chrome or polished nickel faucets. Matte black is the wrong era — MCM hardware was always brass or chrome.
Japandi: Either finish works, but matte black on light wood reads as more authentically Japandi than brass does. Brass on dark wood is also valid (and more Scandi-leaning).
japandi minimalist matte black slim cabinet pulls long
Coastal: Brass, full stop. Matte black in a coastal home looks like you’re trying too hard. Aged brass or living-finish brass complements weathered woods and natural fibers.
Industrial: Matte black wins here. Brass works in industrial spaces only as a deliberate softening element, not as the dominant finish.
Traditional: Antique brass or polished nickel. Matte black in a traditional kitchen looks like a renovation that doesn’t match the house.
Bohemian: Mix freely, but lean brass-dominant. Bohemian is the one style that genuinely supports mixed metals as a deliberate aesthetic choice rather than a mistake.
The Bottom Line
Brass ages better than matte black, full stop. Living-finish unlacquered brass develops a patina that improves over decades; matte black either holds its finish (boring) or chips and shows the metal underneath (worse). For longevity and resale value, brass is the safer bet.
Matte black wins on price, on cool-toned modern aesthetics, and on bathrooms specifically. It loses on fingerprints, on warm-toned kitchens, and on aging gracefully past five years.
If we had to install one finish across an entire home and never think about it again, we’d pick aged brass every time. We’ve never replaced an aged brass pull because it looked dated. We’ve replaced matte black hardware in two properties because it started chipping. That’s the answer.