I had to have a big talk with my wife before buying this. She'd had enough of her eggs sticking to our pans, and definitely had enough of my cooking baked on and needing mega scrubbing to clean. When I took the Hestans out of the box they just looked different. I don't know how to describe it. You could just tell the materials involved were different than something mass market. The metal even feels different to touch. I believe it's because other metals are more porous or something like that. I don't know. But cooking with this cookware is a joy, and cleaning it is easy.