BLANCO, Satin Nickel 441332 CULINA Semi-Pro Kitchen Faucet with Magnetic Handspray, 2.2 GPM

Can one fall in love with a faucet? Perhaps, especially with this one. After looking at many different pro-style kitchen faucets with external spring wrappings, a friend recommended the Cullina by Blanco. The design is brilliant - the arch IS the coil and is extremely flexible and easy to use - the powerful magnet clicks it back into a secured position and you can rotate the entire faucet easily from side to side. Beautifully packaged, it has become the crowning jewel of my kitchen reno, as functional as it is beautiful. The shift from regular flow to spray is easy and ergonomic and the spray head untethered from its magnet reaches every corner of my deep 33" wide divided sink. Two caveats. First, the 2.2 GPM flow is very strong and takes some getting used to - it is appropriate for a deep (9-10") sink but if you already have a shallower bowl, consider the 1.8 flow rate to reduce splashing. Two, it is very easy to turn the handle to full force flow when turning it on, and it takes a little practice to turn it on with a lower flow rate. I would encourage Blanco to add some resistance to the handle leverage so that it is easier to control the flow rate. Aside from those two minor (and related) issues, this is a faucet that I would recommend without reservation.

Updated review: we love the faucet - the look and the functionality. It is lovely and is very very solid. even our plumber was impressed. we still stand by out concern over the false advertising of the finish.*********I may revise my review later but i just received this Blanco Culina faucet - model #441332, sold by AMAZON and the box is CLEARLY labeled as a stainless steel faucet, NOT SATIN NICKEL.I called Blanco and they kept telling me - "oh that is our "crossover" finish - and couldn't explain when I asked them to." Just so you know, it is NOT SATIN NICKEL - it is their stainless steel finish. there IS a difference among finishes for faucets. They advertise it as Satin Nickel but what they sell you is the Stainless - they have no separate satin nickel faucet (only chrome or STAINLESS, marketed as SATIN NICKEL).I am very disappointed in the intentional false marketing. I may review later for the faucet itself it I decide to keep it.

I was pretty happy with this up until today, about 2.5 years after purchase and install. The flow is good, it generally seems sturdy, the magnet is strong, and so on. Sure it's hard to find a middle ground between off and a strong flow, but that's rarely a concern (mainly when it is so cold out that I want to keep a trickle going).But the main reason I came here to knock my rating from 5 starts to 4 and provide a review is the defect that I noticed this morning (see photo). I had no idea that the faucet was using some kind of coating or film, which is now starting to bubble up near the toggle button. This was not an inexpensive faucet, but this seems cheap to me, and of course I do not like the way it looks.

I really love this faucet. We installed it about a year ago. It is beautiful, stylish, works well. Unfortunately there it has a reoccurring issue that we have been dealing with. After approximately 6 months the coating on the faucet head started bubbling and pealing. We went to Blanco website and contacted customer service explaining the issue. They replied very quickly and sent a replacement and even sent a return label for the damaged nozzle for quality control. We replaced it and it was working just fine. Approximately 3-4 months after that the replaced head started malfunctioning. The spray switch stopped working. We wrote to Blanco again explaining the issue and again they replied very quickly and sent a replacement. It's been couple of months now, so far so good. I am hoping it was just a fluke and we won't have anymore issues.

This is a terrible product. The magnet doesn't hold the faucet. It falls down with the slightest movement. I have broken several glasses because of the bad design. I have called Blanco and no one returns my calls. I have emailed and no reply.Bad product, bad company.Get something else.Update January 2014After receiving the initial product from Amazon, which worked very poorly, as documented above, I tried to contact Blanco customer support without response. I tried again, this time they responded quickly. They told me that the product had been updated to fix the problem I outlined above and they would send a replacement immediately, with return shipping paid. The replacement has worked very well since, the revised magnet holds the faucet strongly and it does not fall at the slightest touch.I can now recommend this faucet and the company stood behind their product.\