Burnishing is the process of polishing gold with a smooth tool—traditionally a dog tooth, now often a smooth agate or steel implement. When you burnish gold, you are compressing the leaf, flattening the microscopic irregularities, and creating a smooth reflective surface. This changes everything about how the gold reads.
Unburnished gold has a matte surface. Light scatters. The gold looks soft, diffuse. Burnished gold is mirror-bright. Light reflects directly. The gold seems to glow. This is not a subtle difference. It is the difference between two completely different surfaces. The same piece can have both—burnished passages that gleam and matte passages that recede.
This is why burnishing is a technique, not just a finishing step. The pressure you apply, the direction you work, the tool you use—all of these affect the final result. Heavy burnishing creates a mirror finish. Light burnishing creates a satin finish. You can create patterns and variations. At NoirGold.Art, burnishing is where the light-reading of the work is actually shaped.