Black Stainless steel is incredibly popular. Its dark hue is a viable alternative to the shinier stainless steel we are used to. In fact, the popular brands like LG, Samsung, Frigidaire, Whirlpool, and KitchenAid report Black Steel is now 30% of their kitchen package sales.
In 30 years, I have seen "White Ice," "Black Ice," "Slate," "Carbon," "Avocado," "Coffee," "Platinum," and "Harvest Gold" be a fad in finishes then dramatically fall off.
In my opinion, Black Steel, or at least the finish, can be more of a trend than any of the above colors. However, unlike other finishes, black steel is an oxide applied to stainless steel.
In other words, the finish can be scratched revealing the stainless steel underneath. As you have read on the internet, it looks bad with a black hue and a contrasting, shinier scratch.
We wanted to know how easy or hard it is to scratch a black stainless steel refrigerator. It became the basis our first scratch test.
The Black Steel Scratch Test
We wanted to scratch Black Steel refrigerators like you might at home. We tested the most popular French door black steel refrigerators from LG, Samsung, Frigidaire, Whirlpool, and KitchenAid. We used fingernails, keys, a tray, and spatula under normal circumstances.
Then we tried harder to scratch each surface using a fork. I have a baby at home - put a utensil in her hand and, who knows what could happen! (I probably should have used her for the test.)
Conclusion:
I think all performed fairly well in the other tests not using a fork. In normal use, they did not scratch very easily. We cut all the tests except for the fork so you would not have to watch a 10-minute video. However, under duress, almost all of them left a shiny scratch from the stainless steel underneath. It reminded me of peeling tape because the black finish is not a part of the metal.
However, if you look closely at the fork test, Samsung clearly outperformed the others. You can scratch Samsung, but there is more Black Steel underneath. In fact, it looked unscathed after all the tests, unlike all the other brands.
Without question, if you are worried about scratching Black Steel, then Samsung is your best choice.
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