Is HexClad Non-Toxic? What the Hybrid Surface Is Made Of

HexClad’s hybrid pans have a laser-etched stainless steel lattice over a nonstick coating in the valleys between the ridges. HexClad now calls that coating TerraBond™, a ceramic nonstick it states is PTFE-free and PFAS-free (checked on hexclad.com, August 2026) — a change from the PTFE the company faced a 2023 class-action lawsuit over marketing as non-toxic.

Affiliate disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. If you buy through it, The Zero Waste List may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. HexClad runs its own affiliate program, which this site is not part of, so links to hexclad.com below are plain, unmonetized links.

What Is HexClad?

HexClad is a Los Angeles cookware brand built around one patented idea: a stainless steel surface laser-etched into a hexagon pattern, with a nonstick coating filling the low points between the raised ridges. The company calls this the “Hybrid” design and markets it as combining the searing power of stainless steel with the release of a nonstick pan. It sells almost exclusively through its own site and a small number of big retailers, backed by heavy social-media advertising and a celebrity-chef partnership. As of this check, HexClad’s current lineup is built entirely on that one hybrid surface — fry pans, pots, woks, griddles, and Dutch ovens all share the same ridge-and-valley construction and the same coating name.

The Hybrid Surface, Explained

HexClad describes the pan as a tri-ply build: a layer of magnetic stainless steel on the outside (for induction compatibility), an aluminum core in the middle for fast, even heating, and a second steel layer bonded to the cooking surface. That base is then laser-etched into raised hexagonal ridges, and the recessed valleys between the ridges hold the nonstick coating. The ridges are meant to take the metal-utensil abuse and searing heat; the valleys, protected slightly below the ridge line, are meant to keep food from sticking without needing the whole surface coated.

What sits in those valleys is the part worth checking, because it has changed. HexClad’s current science page and FAQ both describe the coating as “TerraBond™,” a “high-grade proprietary ceramic nonstick” that the company states is PTFE-free and free of PFAS. That is a specific, checkable claim, and it is a different claim than what the same company’s pans carried before 2024.

Does HexClad Have Teflon?

Teflon is DuPont’s brand name for PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) — it isn’t a separate chemical, just a trademark for the same polymer. HexClad’s current Hybrid pans, checked on hexclad.com in August 2026, use TerraBond instead, which the company describes as ceramic rather than fluoropolymer-based. So the current answer, per the maker, is no. It wasn’t always the answer: the 2023 Cliburn class action alleged that Hybrid pans sold before the 2024 reformulation contained PTFE in the nonstick valleys, and HexClad settled without admitting wrongdoing.

If you already own a HexClad pan and aren’t sure which era it’s from, current product pages and packaging name TerraBond explicitly, since the term postdates the reformulation — an older box or listing wouldn’t have used it. A pan bought before 2024, or one bought secondhand without its original packaging, isn’t identifiable from the outside; the ridge-and-valley surface looks the same either way, and HexClad doesn’t stamp a coating name or date code onto the pan itself.

Is HexClad PFAS-free?

PTFE is not a separate category from PFAS — it’s a member of it. PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) is a chemical class of thousands of compounds that share a carbon-fluorine backbone (EPA, PFAS Explained), and fluoropolymers like PTFE fall inside that class by structure, not by brand reputation. Scott Belcher, an associate professor at North Carolina State University, put it plainly in comments reported by Mamavation: “There are many different fluoropolymers that are PFAS, this includes PTFE or Teflon.” That’s why PFOA-free and PFAS-free aren’t interchangeable claims. PFOA was a processing chemical, phased out of U.S. cookware manufacturing by 2015 industry-wide — a brand can say “PFOA-free” truthfully whether or not its coating contains PTFE at all.

HexClad’s current claim is the stronger one: PTFE-free, not just PFOA-free. It’s also, as of this check, unverified by anyone outside the company. HexClad hasn’t published independent lab testing of TerraBond, and LeafScore’s review makes the same point after walking through the reformulation: the brand “doesn’t reveal much about its composition and doesn’t make third-party testing available.” A stated claim and a lab-confirmed one are different levels of evidence, and only the first exists here right now.

What Changed in 2024

HexClad line	Cooking surface	Coating chemistry as stated	Oven max	PTFE-free? per maker
Hybrid Cookware — current (checked Aug. 2026)	Laser-etched stainless steel ridges over nonstick valleys	“TerraBond™,” described as ceramic, on HexClad’s science page	900°F (pan construction claim; the coating itself isn’t given a separate heat rating)	Yes, per HexClad — no independent lab test of TerraBond has been published
Hybrid Cookware — sold before the 2024 change	Same ridge-and-valley design	Unnamed proprietary nonstick; PTFE alleged present in the Cliburn class action	Not stated on any HexClad page still live	No — contained PTFE while marketed as non-toxic, per the Cliburn class action

What Is HexClad’s Lawsuit About?

In 2023, a class action was filed against HexClad’s parent company: Cliburn v. One Source to Market, LLC d/b/a HexClad Cookware, Inc. The suit alleged that HexClad’s “non-toxic” and PFAS-free marketing was misleading, because testing indicated the cookware’s nonstick coating contained PTFE — the exact fluoropolymer the marketing implied it didn’t. HexClad settled the case for $2.5 million without admitting wrongdoing; the claims deadline for class members was November 14, 2025.

What isn’t in dispute is that the marketing language and the coating name both changed in the same window. Pans that once carried an unnamed proprietary nonstick now carry TerraBond, described as ceramic and PTFE-free. That’s consistent with a genuine reformulation — ceramic sol-gel coatings are a real, PTFE-free alternative other brands use too — but it’s also exactly the pattern you’d expect from a company updating its claims to match a settlement, whether or not the underlying chemistry changed as completely as the marketing now suggests. Neither this article nor any source cited here has independently tested a current HexClad pan.

Using HexClad

Is HexClad Safe at High Heat?

HexClad rates its Hybrid fry pans oven-safe to 900°F. That figure describes what the stainless-and-aluminum construction can physically survive, not what the coating should regularly be exposed to — a distinction HexClad’s own guidance backs up. The company’s FAQ tells customers the pan’s heat distribution means “you rarely need to cook on high heat with HexClad” and recommends starting at lower temperatures. That’s standard advice for any nonstick surface, ceramic or PTFE-based: coatings generally break down under sustained high heat well before the metal underneath does, so an oven-safe rating on the pan isn’t a heat rating on the coating.

If You Already Own an Older HexClad Pan

None of this means a pre-2024 HexClad pan belongs in the trash today. PTFE cookware is generally treated as a risk mainly when the coating overheats well past its breakdown point — an empty pan left on high heat, a forgotten burner — or once the surface is visibly scratched, flaking, or peeling, not from ordinary cooking on an intact coating at the low-to-medium heat HexClad itself recommends. Replacing a pan that’s still performing fine, just to match a newer marketing claim, is its own kind of waste.

Watch the coating instead of the calendar: scratches down to bare metal, flaking, or a rough, patchy texture are the signal to stop using it, whichever era of Hybrid pan you own. When it does fail, replace it with whatever you’ve decided fits your kitchen — bare stainless, cast iron, or a current ceramic pan with a claim you trust and can point back to.

Worth being specific about what failure means for this design. The coating sits in laser-etched valleys below the ridge line, which is what protects it and also what makes it unrenewable — there’s no flat surface to strip and recoat, so the pan’s usable life is the valleys’ life, whichever chemistry is in them. Cookware with no coating at all is the only category that escapes that clock, and that’s the durability case for bare stainless, carbon steel, or cast iron over any hybrid: a seasoning layer gets rebuilt, a bonded coating doesn’t. A spent Hybrid pan isn’t a clean material either — stainless, an aluminum core, and a ceramic layer fused into one object, which has to be handled as mixed-material scrap rather than dropped in with plain steel.

Where This Fits in Our Cookware Coverage

We track HexClad and the rest of the ceramic-and-hybrid nonstick field in our cookware PFAS claims tracker, which flags exactly this pattern: check for the current coating name, because older product pages and older marketing language can use different claims than what a brand states today. If you’re comparing HexClad against the wider non-toxic cookware field rather than deciding on HexClad specifically, our non-toxic cookware brands guide runs the same material-first check across stainless, cast iron, enameled cast iron, and ceramic options.

HexClad’s core, like most hybrid and ceramic nonstick pans, is aluminum under the stainless ridges — our is aluminum cookware safe guide covers what actually leaches from that base metal and when it matters.

The Alternatives

What Should I Buy Instead If PTFE Is the Concern?

The surest way to skip the PTFE question entirely is to buy cookware with no nonstick coating at all. Bare stainless steel, carbon steel, and cast iron all cook by building a fond or a seasoning layer instead of relying on a chemical release coating, so there’s nothing to verify or reformulate later. Our cast iron vs. ceramic cookware comparison walks through that trade-off — more maintenance, longer usable life, no coating to fail — against ceramic nonstick specifically. A stainless fry pan with a five-ply build, like Made In’s 10-inch stainless steel frying pan, handles most of what a nonstick pan does for eggs and delicate fish once you learn to heat it properly and use enough fat.

If you want to stay in the ceramic nonstick category rather than switch materials entirely, the honest next step is comparing disclosure records rather than marketing copy. Our brand-specific checks on Caraway and Our Place run the same questions against those two brands: what the coating is called, what the maker states about PTFE and PFAS, and whether any of it has been independently verified. None of the three brands, HexClad included, currently publishes third-party lab testing of its nonstick coating.

Titanium coatings get the same “inherently safe metal” marketing HexClad’s steel does — our is titanium cookware safe guide covers what that claim usually hides.