OXO Obsidian Pre-Seasoned Carbon Steel, 8" Frying Pan Skillet with Removable Silicone Handle Holder, Induction, Oven Safe, 1.8 Liters, Black

I have had this product for a few weeks, and so far, I love it. I am mostly using it to make an egg white and veggie dish in the mornings. Sometimes a small section will stick slightly, bust most often, the entire pan of omelette lifts off in one piece without any added oil. It is magical. The silicone sleeve keeps the handle clean and so far doesn’t get gunk trapped in it that I can tell. The pan seems a similar weight to my old Teflon pan; it is not heavy like cast iron. After several uses, I do see faint changes in the color of the surface finish, see photo. This is very slight and does not seem to have impacted performance. This is my first carbon steel pan, so I don’t know if that is normal or not. While I do wish it came with a lid, I am very happy with this purchase.

Extremely disappointed. Hard to clean, easily rusts and does not have non stick properties after first use. The first use of this pan was great! I followed instructions, gave it a quick soapy rinse, thorough dried.I made an omlette… the pan heated quickly and I found I needed to cook at a much lower temperature than other pans I used. Clean up was good. Then, subsequent uses… my daughter used the pan and let it air dry overnight… rust spots appeared the next day. I wiped them down and re-oiled the pan with peanut oil and heated until it hit its smoke point per instructions. The pan did not retain any non stick properties. I then cleaned the pan again and rubbed the entirety of the pan with olive oil , placed pan in the oven for 1 hour to reseason. Let cool. When I used it again, still no non-stick properties. I am used to using cast iron - it does not absorb the oil like cast iron, and is extremely unforgiving to maintain.

I LOVE this pan. It is so light, comparable even to my stainless steel. I can easily cook omelets without sticking. Cleaning it is a breeze (wipe it out with a cloth, spray with oil, wipe again, done. For stuck on food, use a bit of hot water with dish brush, and every few times also some dish soap). Out of habit once I cleaned it with white vinegar, which completely removed the nonstick surface. Throwing some oil on it and baking it upside down at 350° for an hour and re-oiled it, and it nonstick again. I love that I can use minimal oil and sometimes no oil at all when I’m cooking. Yes, I can make an omelette in stainless steel, but it takes a lot more effort to get the perfect temperature and sometimes I still screw up stainless and end up with scrambled eggs. This is now my GO TO pan in the kitchen, and it is so fun finally having nonstick cookware after a decade-plus of avoiding it due to health reasons that I am cooking a lot more. If I need anything acidic like tomatoes cooked, I just cook that in a separate stainless steel pan to avoid letting the acidity ruin the nonstick surface. Other than learning about the acidity issue, it’s been pretty straightforward to use. I did once use a metal fork to scrape off some stuck on food which left big scratch marks and I was panicking that I ruined the pan. But did some online research and seems it’s fine. But going forward I will still avoid metal to avoid messing up the nonstick surface. One of the best purchases I’ve made in a long time. If you currently avoid nonstick cookware due to health reasons of the chemicals used in non-stick cookware, you need to buy this ASAP. Cast iron is way too heavy and difficult to hang due to its weight.

This is almost perfect, is non-stick after preheating, and works great in the oven. The bad part is that the center is slightly raised, so the eggs and pancake batter slide to the edges and the middle burns. The bottom should be completely flat.

I spent a long time deciding whether or not to get a carbon steel pan to replace my beloved old nonstick, read a bunch of reviews, and anguished over the idea of “seasoning”. I have a tiny kitchen in a studio apartment and I was hesitant to take on any major/stinky cookware maintenance. This pre-seasoned pan has exceeded all my expectations. It has been truly non-stick, it’s aging well with use, and it has been easy to care for. My food is coming out better than ever and I am pleased that I finally made the switch to this pan. The 10-inch size is slightly larger than I need, and bigger than a standard “medium size” fying pan. It seems more like 11 inches in diameter and my 10-in lids for other pots don’t fit it well. Most of the time I am appreciating the larger surface area, but it’s on the too-large side for making full-pan items like crepes and omelettes. It’s also quite heavy, so that might be a factor for some people, but I find it manageable to handle. All in all, I’m really pleased with this pan. Update, May 2025 I have now bought this pan 3 times… not due to any problems or lack of durability, but because I want to have one everywhere I cook. My original purchase is still as reliable and enjoyable to cook with as when it was new. I have put it through heavy use for 2 years and I have zero complaints. I got one for my partner’s kitchen, which already had an extensive collection of cast iron, but they were so heavy and fussy compared to this! Recently, I was visiting my parents and the appalling quality of their old, cheapo no-longer-nonstick pans motivated me to get one of these for them, too. The first test was some toasted cheese sandwiches and they came out magnificently perfect and crusty. Once you get used to a carbon steel pan, it’s hard to abide anything else! At least for me!

The Oxo obsidian 10 inch fry pan failed in two crucial ways. First, bottom of the pan is not flat, but is convex. The center of the pan is domed, causing cooking oil or other liquids to flow away from the center and to the edges. Second, the Oxo applied “preseasoning,“ whatever it is, failed, and cannot be functionally replaced by new seasoning. Either alone is a complete failure of its essential function and purpose as a fry pan. Before using the pan, I followed the instructions to remove the protective glaze coating using hot water and soap. It came away fairly easily and completely. Oxo’s instructions said that I could cook on the pan immediately, though it also said that I could reseason it, which seemed a good idea and is what I did. I’ve seasoned my collection of antique cast-iron skillets for decades, and the instructions on the Oxo website were similar. I seasoned it once or twice on the stove top using avocado oil. When cooking in the pan the first time, a fond had developed in the center area that had stuck and could not be deglazed. I did not expect this to happen on a seasoned pan. Cleaning it afterward was very difficult. I eventually did get it removed, using just a sponge and hot soapy water, though the preseasoning was now gone from the center and significant discoloration was left in its place. To replace the preseasoning that was now gone from the center, I seasoned it on the stove top again several times, following the instructions. I heated the pan gently, added oil, raised it just to a smoke point, wiped the pan out, then let it cool before polishing. Whether cooking or seasoning, I never had the pan on high heat. The highest heat was at about 60-70% on my induction stove top. The second time I cooked with the pan, I saw the oil flowed away from the center of the pan, toward the edges, revealing the domed shape of the pan bottom. (See the first photo.) For most of the cooking, the center dome was clear of any cooking oil. The fond that was created in the center was thick, stuck, and very difficult to remove. Again, I did not expect a seasoned pan to stick like this. It didn’t come off with soap and water. I followed the Oxo website’s recommendation to use salt to clean it, which worked. It revealed the center to be even more significantly discolored. It did leave a smooth surface allowing reseasoning. I seasoned the pan again on the stove top several times. Using another method for reseasoning on the Oxo website, I also seasoned the pan in the oven at 400° after lightly wiping the inside with cooking oil. This is, of course, the singularly best way to create a really good base of multiple layers of seasoning all bonded together for any metal pan, whether cast-iron or carbon steel. What should happen is for the oil to thin as it heats and flows in a sheet over the whole cooking surface of the pan. Yet the result this pan displayed after oven-seasoning was truly telling about Oxo’s “pre-seasoning.” The central domed part of the pan, where the “pre-seasoning” had failed and where my seasoning had been established, took to the oven–seasoning quite well and as I expected: it was very smooth, creating another good strong layer of seasoning. Yet on the edges, where the pre-seasoning still was holding, it did not bond to the new coat of oil at all. Instead the preseasoned sections beaded up the oil, which then hardened as they cooked, just like raindrops on a well-waxed car finish. I have never had a seasoned pan bead up cooking oil like that. (See second photo.) I don’t know what the 'pre-seasoning” actually is. Oxo does not say what product they use. It doesn’t look or act like a natural seasoning based on a cooking oil. It’s acting like an artificial coating. It has a distinctly artificial and unnatural blue color. I question whether it is a natural product at all. I suspect Oxo’s “preseasoning” is actually a coat of non-stick material. I avoid cooking with any artificial non-stick coatings. I don’t trust them. I am left with a pan that Oxo has treated with some product that it will not describe, yet that is not a natural cooking oil based seasoning. It may be an effective nonstick coating, but if so, Oxo shouldn’t provide instructions as though it were an oil-seasoned pan. If you are interested in a pan with an artificial nonstick coating, maybe it could work for you. However, if yours has the same domed bottom, the coating is likely to fail in the same way. I like the shape and design and light weight of the pan. If Oxo would sell an unseasoned pan, I would try it, although I would watch carefully to see whether it also has the dome in the center of the pan. I have been happy with the Oxo brand before. I have in my experience learned to trust Wirecutter's recommendations implicitly. No longer. Both brands have taken a big reputational hit with me.

I really like how light carbon steel is compared with cast iron. This oxo one is excellent - much better than another brand carbon pan I have. The seasoning on this pan is pretty good to begin with, but gets better the more you cook with it. I can use metal spatulas on it, and even scrape the pan with metal, with no damage. The pan is so light to lift and remove food. Carbon steel is like a high-maintenance cast iron - you do have to baby it, especially in the beginning as you build up seasoning. Always scrub with soap and water to get to a smooth surface after cooking (the idea that you don't use soap is a myth!), and then lightly apply a thin layer of oil with a rag/paper towel to prevent rust. To prevent sticking, always pre-heat the pan thoroughly to medium-high, then turn the heat down to whatever temp you need. This pan cleans easily, even when I've burnt the occasional item. As I've cooked, it's gone from a medium gray color to a deep black that rivals Teflon for how non-stick it is.

I avoid non-stick cookware like the plague and prefer carbon steel, so I bought this one because it said "pre-seasoned" in the description and a certain product testing organization I follow rated it highly. As soon as I washed it right out of the box I could tell it was not seasoned with heat and oil, the water beaded up too easily. It felt and behaved exactly like a non-stick coating. So I contacted OXO, who directed me to the manufacturer (they don't make their own cookware), The Cookware Company. From there I drilled down into Green Pan, one of their subsidiaries that makes the OXO pan, whose claim to fame is a "non-toxic ceramic non-stick coating". They claim it is non-toxic because it is made of a ceramic derivative of sand, and the manufacturing process doesn't use PFOA or PFAS chemicals. That's lovely, but I have no reason to believe it is safe other than their claims. A little bit of research into "non-stick ceramic coatings" revealed that they are made with other, potentially toxic chemicals, and I couldn't find any published studies on their safety. I'm giving it three stars because it's a well-made pan, it certainly feels solid and sturdy, and the silicone grip on the handle is nice, but I don't trust it for cooking my food, especially when they deceptively call it "pre-seasoned" instead of "non-stick". Are they hiding something? I'll just stick to my good ol' oil-seasoned carbon steel wok.

Over hyped product. Burns (smokes) easily even at low fire. I won't recommend it.

This was my first carbon steel utensil and I have been using it everyday since I bought it, usually for breakfast. It's perfect for 1 person meals. If you plan to cook two pieces of steak at once or 2 salmon fillets or anything equivalent to those portions - I would suggest you go for a larger size. But don't even think to divert from carbon steel!

The coating came off after 2nd cooking and cleaning gently with a soft cloth.

Comes with a bit of pre-seasoning but gets even more non stick just with regular use. Recommends no soaking but have found that a short soak quickly gets rid of anything stubborn and doesn’t seem to do any harm. The pan surface is smooth unlike some others which have a grainy surface and this feels less sticky.

I freaking love this pan already. It is pre-seasoned as promised, and very non-stick as a result. It's very light and cleans easily. I think I would pick a larger version if I were to order it again.