There can be some confusion over what exactly some finish names mean, especially Black Chrome. To be clear, Gotoh's Black Chrome is a full black finish and Cosmo Black is a dark grey.

"I wanted black chrome, not black."

This seems to run contrary to the car parts industry where many "black chrome" items look closer to Cosmo Black. From what we understand about finishing,* black chrome is a term that describes a process rather than a shade. The process in question is adding hexavalent (or trivalent) as a component to darken the chrome. Add a little to make it just a little smokey; add more to get it all the way up to full dark black like Gotoh's Black Chrome finish.

Gotoh's Black Chrome finish uses hexavalent to darken the chrome to a full black. Cosmo Black does not use hexavalent or even chrome at all so it would be inappropriate to refer to it as black chrome. Both are a shiny finish. (In some very limited cases Gotoh makes a Satin Cosmo Black finish.)

BONUS TRIVIA

A few years ago Gotoh took their Black Chrome finish off the market voluntarily while they investigated the health issues regarding hexavalent. Once they were satisfied that their products were within safety limits they brought it back.

* Please note that we are not experts in finishing. Most of this information comes from various websites, including Gotoh, finishing.com and Arlington Plating. If you are an expert in finishing and would like to improve this article, feel free to send us an email!

In this article we are using uppercase to describe the name of a Gotoh finish (eg. "Black Chrome") and lowercase to describe a finish in general (eg. "chrome".)