Thoughts on Keycaps and Shine

Perhaps one of the most divisive aspects of keycaps is that of material used to make the keycaps. There are a plethora of materials but what you tend to see most are either acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) or polybutylene terephthalate (PBT). The actual chemical makeup is more complicated than that but for simplicity and easier recognition by people buying keycaps they are typically listed as being one or the other. There are benefits and drawbacks to both materials but the one aspect that is most talked about is how they behave from use. How they respond to being touched and to the oils in our hands and the speed at which they shine.

So, what is shine? Shine develops over time with plastics from wear. You’ll see it on anything made of plastic that is regularly handled but keycaps develop this in a noticeable way because they are touched so much during use. What happens is due to a combination of factors from touching the keycaps. The texture they have from the factory is slowly worn down and affected by the oils in our hands and the keycaps smooth out and that changes the way light reflects on them. That increase in perceived reflectivity because the micro surfaces are smoothed out is what that shine is. The smoother they become the more they appear to reflect and shine.

And that’s where people tend to find either their dislike or enjoyment of that aspect of keycaps. For some people, that gradual shift in appearance and how it occurs unevenly because the caps are used at different rates from each other is frustrating and disappointing. For others, they see it as the gradual transition from new to being worn in and aged, like a patina or a pair of shoes. The wear patterns are always different between people, keycap sets, and keyboards. There will always be an inherent unevenness and some keys will wear much faster than others. And that’s where we get back to chemistry again.

With ABS plastics, they wear faster than PBT plastics do typically. In fact, PBT wear is sometimes years’ worth of use that begins to show shine for keycaps. I have some PBT keycap sets that I’ve used for long periods, and they still look almost indistinguishable from when they were new. They simply don’t appear to age as quickly as ABS keycaps, at least in this metric. ABS caps, however, can begin to show shine much more quickly. Sometimes that means months, weeks, or even days if the quality is poor enough or the usage is high enough. Ultimately, it’s unpredictable for the most part and is simply part of the process for owning, and using, those keycaps.

For me, I am part of the crowd that likes the shine. I like how it shows that I’ve used the keycaps and how they’ve aged from my usage over time. I think of it like the patina on a favorite tool or the little patterns that appear on surfaces in my car from how I have used my car over the years. For instance, there’s a small notch in my steering wheel that formed from years of wearing a ring and holding the wheel in the same spot with the ring. Most people won’t even notice it but for me it’s a little reminder that I’m the one who put it there not through any act of maliciousness but simply through the quirky habits of my own driving technique.

Seeing keycaps age and shine over time for me is a fun little game. I get to see what is essentially a histogram of how I use and touch my keyboard over time and it’s fascinating to me. Again, most people won’t notice it. They’ll simply see another keyboard with a set of keycaps and not give it much thought. But, for enthusiasts, we can see a picture of use over time. We can see these tools that we use so much through our lives for typing, for gaming, for anything we need to use a keyboard for on a computer. We see the result of thousands of hours of use and that’s fascinating to me. Before I got my first ABS keycap sets, I simply wasn’t sure how I would feel about this aspect of them.

The first quality ABS keycap set I got was the Susuwatari MT3 set from Drop. It was honestly a bit of a risky choice to make. I wasn’t sure about how I would feel about shine and it was for a keycap profile I had never tried before. Thankfully, for me, I loved both aspects of them. Firstly, I found the profile a joy to type on. They had a great acoustic profile owing to their thick walls and tall profile. And the shine that developed on them over time became that fun reminder of how much I had used them since I got them. I wasn’t sure I would like that. I was afraid that seeing that uneven wear would irritate me because it does mean the caps will all have a slightly different appearance and texture from each other. But much like a favorite pair of shoes, I wore them in and can see little reminders of how I’ve used them over time.

I can see how the WASD cluster and surrounding keys are more heavily worn because I so frequently use those when gaming on my computer. I can see how the right side of the spacebar is worn to the sides because I primarily use my right hand for space when typing but my left hand when gaming, so the middle is least shined. I see how the right shift key is virtually new because my touch-typing method only uses the left shift. It’s a little view into how I use my computer and keyboard and it’s an easy way to see how it is really mine. I like the shine because it is a gradual process that is essentially entirely down to my hands. Much like how a steam given enough time will wear down stone into a canyon, my hands wear down my keycaps into a reflection of me into their plastic. I think that’s fascinating and frankly cool to see happen. 

I’m not here to convince you one way or another whether you would like that shine. That’s all about personal preference and how you interact with your keyboard. I simply want you to know a bit more about that so that you can make an informed decision about your own keycaps. If you don’t like it, you’ll know to avoid ABS keycaps. If you’re not sure, perhaps a less expensive set of ABS keycaps would be a way to test it out without paying for GMK or Drop DCX or MT3 keycaps. Or, hey, maybe you love it and just like reading about someone else’s view on it. Mostly, I think it’s fascinating how we each see this through a different view, and I find it interesting to hear other people’s thoughts on shine. Because, ultimately, it’s always going to be there through use over time.