The crash comes first, then the silence, then the sad little inventory on the kitchen floor. If you are standing over broken pottery right now, a grandmother's serving bowl, a favourite mug, the plate that survived three house moves but not a fourth, take a breath before you reach for the bin or the glue. Repairing ceramics is far more achievable than most people assume, and what you do in the next ten minutes matters more than anything else in the whole repair. This is the first aid guide: what to do right now, what your honest options are, and why the most beautiful of them mends the break with gold.
First aid for broken pottery: the first ten minutes
Whichever repair you choose, every good outcome starts the same way. Slow down and treat the casualty properly.
- Gather every fragment, including the tiny ones. Check under the fridge, behind the bin and along the skirting board. Chips travel remarkably far, and one missing sliver is the difference between a lovely seam and a permanent gap.
- Handle the broken edges as little as possible. They are sharp, and every touch leaves a trace of grease. Whatever adhesive you eventually use will want those edges clean and completely dry.
- Wrap and box the pieces. Kitchen roll or a soft cloth around each piece, then everything into a container. Fragments left to rattle together lose the crisp edges that make a tight join possible.
- Do not glue anything yet. This is the rule people break within the hour and regret for years. A hasty repair with the wrong glue is the hardest mistake to undo. The pottery is already broken. Waiting a day costs nothing.
Can broken ceramics be repaired at all?
Almost always, yes. A dropped bowl or plate usually breaks into a handful of clean pieces, and clean breaks mend well, because the fragments still fit together like a three-dimensional jigsaw with only one solution. The real question is not whether broken ceramics can be repaired, it is which repair the piece deserves, and the urge to fix broken ceramics quickly is rarely a good guide. There are three honest routes.
What are your options for repairing ceramics?
Ordinary superglue: the quick fix
The tube in the kitchen drawer will stick china back together, and for a piece you like but do not love, it may be all you need. Done carefully, the join can be close to invisible, but it comes with caveats. The join tends to be brittle, so it suits an ornament at the back of a shelf better than a mug picked up daily. It is not food safe, however invisible the mend looks. And a rushed, misaligned superglue join is very hard to take apart and redo, which is exactly why the first aid stage says wait.
Professional restoration: the museum route
For a genuinely valuable antique, or an heirloom whose worth is measured in money as well as memory, a professional ceramics restorer is the right call. It is also the only route worth considering if you need the piece back in everyday use with food, since home repairs of every kind rule that out. Expect to pay properly and to wait, and for anything of real value do nothing to the pieces at all: a restorer would far rather receive a box of untouched fragments than a hopeful glue job.
Kintsugi: the repair that celebrates the break
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold. Instead of disguising the damage, it fills every crack with a bright golden seam, so the repair becomes the most beautiful thing about the piece. The idea grows out of wabi-sabi, the Japanese principle of embracing imperfection: the break stops being the end of the object's story and becomes its most interesting chapter. Traditional kintsugi uses lacquer and real expertise; modern kits, including our Kintsugi Repair Kit, swap it for a strong two-part epoxy mixed with premium gold mica pigment, which delivers the golden result in an evening.
Which pottery repair should you choose?
Four questions settle it.
- What is it worth in money? If the honest answer is "quite a lot", stop here and call a restorer. Everything else here is for pieces whose value lives somewhere other than an auction catalogue.
- What is it worth in feeling? This is where kintsugi earns its keep. Superglue tries to pretend the break never happened, which feels faintly dishonest on a piece with history. Gold says the opposite: this bowl broke, it mattered, and it was worth mending beautifully.
- What will it do next? If it must hold Sunday dinner again, that is professional territory. If its next job is to sit somewhere admired, hold keys or cradle a tea light, superglue and kintsugi both qualify, and only one of them is lovely.
- How many pieces are there? Count them. Between three and six large pieces is the sweet spot for a home kintsugi repair: enough breaks for dramatic golden veins, few enough to keep the assembly calm. Two pieces work beautifully too. Dozens of tiny fragments make a harder task for any home method, and a moment to consider whether a restorer, or a dignified farewell, is kinder.
What does it take to mend a broken bowl with gold?
Less than you might think, which is why we steer most people with a loved but not valuable piece towards kintsugi. There is no kiln, no firing and no artistic talent required. You assemble the dry pieces first so you know the order they go together, starting from the largest. Then, in a ventilated room with gloves on, you mix a small batch of golden glue: a measure of epoxy part A on the mixing card, a small scoop of gold pigment stirred through, then an equal measure of part B. From that moment the glue is setting, so you work one seam at a time, spreading a thin line along a broken edge, pressing the pieces together and holding for 30 to 60 seconds before moving on. A little gold squeezing out of the join is nothing to worry about, it sets solid and becomes the vein that gives the piece its character. When the bowl is whole again, it rests for 24 hours to cure fully.
You even control the drama. A generous line of glue squeezes out into a bold, thick vein; a sparing one keeps the seam delicate. If the thought of learning on your grandmother's bowl makes you nervous, that is why the Sandy Leaf Farm Kintsugi Repair Kit includes two practice china bowls and cotton fabric to wrap them in: you learn on pieces with no sentimental weight and arrive at the real repair knowing what you are doing.
What are the honest limits of a kintsugi repair?
Any repair worth doing is worth being straight about. A kintsugi mend made with epoxy is decorative: the adhesive is not food grade, so the piece retires from dinner service and becomes an object to display. It is not waterproof either, so it is not the answer for a vase you want to keep filling. The dishwasher and microwave are permanently off the menu; a gentle hand dusting is all the cleaning it needs. The glue is strong stuff and strictly for adults, used in a well-ventilated room with the gloves on, because it can bond skin in seconds. And one lovely exception to the no-food rule: a repaired bowl makes a perfect home for tea lights and candles, all of the beauty with none of the food contact.
Broken pottery repair FAQs
How do I fix a broken bowl that snapped into just two pieces?
Gratefully, because two clean pieces is the easiest repair there is. One seam, one hold, done. With kintsugi, that single crack becomes one dramatic ribbon of gold across the bowl, often more striking than a web of small veins.
What is the best glue for broken pottery?
For strength, a two-part epoxy beats the ordinary superglue in your drawer, which is why kintsugi kits use one. Whichever glue you choose, the rules are the same: clean, completely dry edges, a thin even layer, and a firm hold while it sets. And no household glue of any kind makes a repair food safe.
Can I repair a broken plate that is missing a piece?
You can still mend everything you have, and kintsugi is forgiving here: a small visible gap sits comfortably within a philosophy built on embracing imperfection. A large missing section is a job for a professional restorer.
Can broken ceramics be repaired to be food safe again?
Not at home. Superglue and epoxy are not food grade, so anything you mend yourself becomes decorative. If food use genuinely matters, professional restoration is the only route.
How long does a kintsugi repair take?
About an evening. Each join is held for 30 to 60 seconds, the whole assembly is an hour or so of unhurried work, and then the piece needs 24 hours for the glue to cure fully. The hardest part is not poking it.
What if the repair goes wrong partway through?
Nearly everything is fixable. Glue that refuses to set is almost always an uneven mix, the two parts need combining in equal amounts and stirring thoroughly. Messy squeeze-out just needs wiping away promptly, and a thinner layer next time. For everything else, the Help Hut kintsugi guide answers the questions we are asked most, from weak joins to gold that will not behave.
When you are ready to turn the break into the best thing about the bowl, the Sandy Leaf Farm Kintsugi Repair Kit is hand-packed in Britain and waiting.
