Nonstick pans: I bought five and cooked eggs in them for two years. Price predicted nothing.

Five pans, about £15 to about £120, two years, eggs several times a week.

They all failed

That is the headline and it is not a scandal — it is what a nonstick coating does. It is a consumable bonded to a durable object, which is a strange product to sell as cookware and the reason this category is so frustrating.

The £15 pan lost its coating at around ten months. The £120 pan lost its coating at around twenty-six. The £45 pan lasted longer than the £80 one.

What predicted lifespan

Heat discipline, more than anything I paid for. The pan I habitually preheated empty on high degraded fastest regardless of price, and when I corrected that habit mid-test the remaining pans’ decline slowed visibly.

Utensils, obviously, though less than expected. Wooden and silicone throughout; the one metal slip did visible damage but not fatal damage.

Dishwasher exposure. The two pans that went through the dishwasher fared worse than the handwashed ones of similar price. Coatings tolerate detergent poorly.

Thickness of the base, which correlated with even heating, which correlated with not needing high heat, which is the actual mechanism. This is the one physical property worth paying for, and it is not what the marketing leads with.

The arithmetic

At £15 for ten months, that is £18 a year. At £120 for twenty-six months, that is £55 a year.

Nothing in the expensive pan’s performance made up that difference. It was a nicer object — better balanced, more pleasant handle, more even — and it wore out anyway.

What I would buy

A mid-priced pan with a thick base, around £30 to £40, treated as a consumable and replaced when it fails. Never on high heat empty. Never in the dishwasher.

And one carbon steel or cast iron pan alongside it, for everything that does not strictly need nonstick. That pan will outlive me, and it takes the load off the one that will not.

The honest framing

You are not buying a pan. You are renting a coating, and the rent turns out to be roughly the same whatever you pay up front.

Buy accordingly: cheap enough that replacing it is not an event, thick enough that you never need the heat that kills it.