Piotr

Two minutes and it removes the whole am-I-cooking-wrong question, which is the part that keeps people guessing for months.

There is a test and it takes two minutes: the dry egg test.

Heat the pan on medium with nothing in it, no oil, no butter: until it is properly warm but not hot. Crack an egg in. Let it set for a minute, then push it gently with a silicone spatula.

• Slides freely as a whole: the coating is working. Keep the pan.
• Grips in places, releases with a push: tired, still usable for things that are not eggs. This is where your two in-between pans probably are.
• Welds itself to the surface: finished. No technique fixes this.

That gives you a category rather than a feeling, and it is repeatable, so you can retest in three months rather than wondering.

On scratches: a scratch is a place with no coating. A few fine marks in a pan that still passes the test are cosmetic and the pan works. What matters is when scratches become the surface rather than marks on it - food starts catching along the lines, and it spreads outward.

When it is genuinely done, and this is the one where I would not compromise: if the coating is flaking, blistering or lifting in sheets, or the metal underneath is showing over any real area, it is finished. Not because of a specific hazard claim, but because a coating coming off in pieces is going into the food and is not going to improve.