SHINY glossy kitchen surfaces.
They look fabulous until someone touches them — then they look dreadful.
So it's with a great deal of relief that I discovered recently the new trend towards matte finishes in kitchens.
We're not just talking benchtops either.
Cupboards and even appliances are heading in the same direction according to celebrity interior designer Shaynna Blaze.
"Surfaces used to always be shiny and gloss, whereas now you have the option of having matte finishes," she said. "That's a really important change to kitchens.
"So, with a lot of people going for matte surfaces and matte doors, if you can have your cooktops that match it, it really puts you on that designer edge of how your kitchens look."
Ms Blaze said ASKO (asko.com.au) had launched a glass induction cooktop with a matte black finish — the only one of its kind.
Not only does the matte induction cooktop provide a sophisticated finish, it combines superior scratch-resistant and fingerprint-resistant surfaces," she said.
"The trends in colour have gone a lot softer. We have a lot of bright reds and we had bold blues in the 90s and coming into the 2000s.
"Now we've gone back to white, solid blacks, soft greys and really making our tiles and our splashbacks a little bit more organic. So our kitchens are feeling, I think, a little more earthy, warmer and they're a lot softer. So it's about comfort and feeling like a home."
