- Removes oxidation very quickly and effectively
- A single tube will last a very long time
- Affordable and easy solution for maintaining guitar frets
- Can be used on other metal parts too
- Although it can be wiped off without any issue, it's easy to leave some leftovers at the bottom of the frets
Hello there, back again with another excellent review of possibly my favourite instrument care product by MusicNomad. This time, we will be looking at one of the best fret polishes in the market, Music Nomad Frine Fret Polish. In this article, I will introduce the Music Nomad company to you and talk about their wonderful fret polish, Frine, as well as provide you with a quick test video to show you if it’s really worth it!
Table of Contents
About MusicNomad
For those unfamiliar with the Music Nomad company, here’s a brief introduction and a glimpse into its history. Music Nomad is an American company founded by Rand Rognlien. Mr Rognlien was the owner of the Car Care company throughout the ’90s and 2000s. He specialised in this segment and managed to develop over 100 Car Care products, becoming a market leader in the process. As a musician and guitar and bass player, he sought to achieve more in the music field and launched MusicNomad.com in 2008.
Surprisingly, the MusicNomad website initially served as a platform where musicians could discover ranked and reviewed resources to help them produce, sell, and support their music, along with hundreds of articles, tips, and tricks on music making. As Mr Rognlien wanted to keep everything free of charge for musicians, he also started thinking about creating a revenue stream to accelerate the growth of the MusicNomad company.
Therefore, he used his extensive experience in manufacturing the highest-quality cleaning and care products by working with experts in the business and eventually created the MusicNomad product line. They tested all the possible cleaning, care and maintenance products, such as polishes and waxes, in the music industry and improved upon them as they did not like everything about what the market offered. Their unique formula, combined with their utmost care in selecting the best and most environmentally friendly ingredients, such as White Brazilian Carnauba, as well as UV protectants and Gloss Enhancers, features 100% non-toxic, non-abrasive ingredients. Even the bottles they use are made of 100% PET, the most environmentally friendly and recyclable plastic. 
In 2010, MusicNomad released its guitar and drum care product line, which can be purchased through over 3000 dealers in 40 countries. The feedback, awards and compliments that they have received in the music industry have been outstanding, and they keep rocking!
Check out all the articles featuring MusicNomad here
How I Met MusicNomad Products?
It was almost exactly 13 years ago (2013) when I first got Music Nomad products, including their Guitar One, F-One Oil and Guitar Polish. As far as I remember, F-One Oil was possibly one of the first guitar fingerboard care products that featured 100% essential oil. I was very surprised that this product was already designed and released to the MI market back in the day. I even got inspired by this product and attempted to create my own essential oil mix.
Check out my How to Care Guitar Fretboard? – Lemon Oil is not really lemon oil! article here
If you are one of my regular visitors, you will know that I enjoy trying different instrument care products and providing you with as much information as possible so you don’t waste your money on products with false claims. Back in the day, I even attempted to create my own mixture as I had access to cold-pressed essential oils. In that era, I could only access Music Nomad F-One Oil in the Turkish MI market, and after I compared it with my own mixture, I concluded that they knew what they were doing. 🙂 
After I relocated to the EU for employment purposes and started rebuilding my gear base, I immediately wanted to check out the Music Nomad product line. Having realised it was now widely available on Thomann’s website made me really happy! When I noticed that, I immediately added multiple Music Nomad products to my last order and received them successfully! To be honest, I got most of the MN products in terms of cleaning and maintenance products, in addition to what I have mentioned above. For instance, I even tried and tested the Music Nomad Amp & Case Cleaner to clean my forgotten Fender hardcase.
Music Nomad Frine
MusicNomad Frine is the company’s only fret polish product that has been available in the market recently. It’s one of the newest products by the legendary Music Nomad company. As you may have noticed with your guitars, the frets on your instrument will get oxidised regardless of how much you love and play them. Even stainless steel frets get oxidised, as this is a naturally occurring process in nature. If you never spend any time caring for and maintaining your instrument, you should know that if you do not invest time and money in your guitars, you will eventually have to pay for someone else to do that. Oxidised frets will eventually wear faster because of the layers accumulated on the surface of the frets, which makes it easier to interact with your strings.
Music Nomad Frine is designed to include micro-fine polishing compounds that safely and quickly remove oxidation, dirt and any oil on the fret surfaces. It restores smoothness and guarantees a shiny look without even using any abrasives on your frets. As with any Music Nomad product, they are extremely transparent with what they put into their products! I really appreciate their openness about the ingredients. Simply visit their website and check out individual FAQ pages for each product, and you will see a list of ingredients without messing with your mind. Superb ethics! 
Music Nomad Frine Ingredients
- C12-14 Isoparafin Solvent/Cleaner Solubilises or dissolves at least one other substance to form a solution.
- DMDM Hydantoin preservative – Used to make the solution environment less favourable to the microorganisms
- Mono(hydroxymethyl)-5,5-dimethylimidazolidine-2,4-dione – Used to make the solution environment less favourable to the microorganisms
- Eugenol Fragrance – For flavouring the solution
- C.I. Acid Violet 48 – For colouring the solution
Music Nomad Frine comes in a small tube that contains 30ml (or 1 oz.) of magical Frine. 
How to Use Frine?
Using Frine is pretty straightforward; however, you should be careful with the amount you are going to apply. At first, I tend to use a generous amount on the polishing cloth; however, it immediately spreads on the MusicNomad Fretboard Guard and lands on the fingerboard. As you can also see in the official Music Nomad video, only a tiny little bit of Frine is enough for a couple of frets already.
Note that you can purchase both the Frine and the Fret Guards that come with the MusicNomad Fret Polishing Kit MN124. In my humble opinion, Fret Guards are not necessary. I think Fret Guards are useful when you need to use harsher or riskier methods of polishing, buffing or grinding the frets in any way. Apart from that, using guards with Frine doesn’t do much at all. You will still see Frine leaking next to the frets on the fretboard, as the Frine is pretty much in liquid form.
Also, as mentioned in the official video, try to use their MusicNomad Fret Guards or masking tape while applying Frine. Even though it’s very easy to remove the excess Frine from the fretboard, I think there’s no need to cover the entire fretboard with a fret polish. In my test video below, I am also using MusicNomad Fret Guards. These Fret Guards are definitely very useful and practical, except for the fact that I couldn’t fit them in the last couple of frets of my Schecter Hellraiser Hybrid PT-7. 🙂
Review
As with any Music Nomad product, Music Nomad Frine also delivers what has been promised by the company. So you can take my test video as a confirmation of their claims, but I did not doubt that this would not work at all. Based on the calculation on the Thomann product page, Music Nomad Frine costs 330EUR per litre, which sounds extremely expensive at first sight. However, when you consider how much you should be using per session, I can easily tell you that this will last for years. So I believe it’s a good investment for your guitars. Here you can also watch my Frine test video, as you can see it’s extremely quick, easy and effective as claimed by Music Nomad! You can easily see the massive difference between frets polished with Frine and those that have not yet been polished in the video. 
However, I also want to share some still images from my instrument care session below. I deliberately used my camera’s flash to show you how shiny these frets have become after a few seconds of applying Frine. Note that I tried Frine on my Schecter, which has stainless steel frets, as well as on my Epiphone SG Custom, which has nickel frets. Music Nomad Frine works extremely well and consistently on both fret types.
And this next image shows all the polished frets on my Schecter. I can’t imagine how shinier they would get if I used any buffing device!!!
The same goes for the nickel frets. Please check out the next image showing shiny nickel frets on my Epiphone SG Custom Ebony.
Note that you can also use Music Nomad Frine on your guitar hardware, such as metal pickup covers, bridges, tailpieces, tuning pegs and screws! While caring for and maintaining my Epiphone SG Custom, I also cleaned the pickup covers, which had deep stains from months of waiting on the corner.
More Live Tests!
While taking care of my instruments, I had the chance to record the restringing and instrument care sessions for each and have already published some additional videos. Take these as guitar therapy sessions 🙂 Here, you can watch MusicNomad Frine in action and find out how it works on any fret!
Frine on Ibanez RG565
Frine on Takamine GD30CE
Verdict
Frine, as with any Music Nomad product, is no exception and absolutely delivers on its promise! Although it sounds like a costly product initially, with the amount needed for each cleaning session, you will likely use a single tube of Frine for many, many years. So from a cost perspective, I think it’s pretty affordable. Since Music Nomad products have recently become available in the EU market, only 52 user reviews have been posted on Thomann.
Frine has had a rating of 4.8/5 out of 52 reviews, which is outstanding user feedback considering the fact that it’s been available for a couple of years in the EU! As with any Music Nomad product, I have my full trust in the MusicNomad product line and no doubt in the product quality across their entire catalogue. 
As always, I have never been endorsed by any brand to publish a paid article containing positive reviews; it’s the same with Music Nomad products and this particular article. I’m a big fan of their products and would like to promote them as they totally deserve more success!
Pricing & Availability
My long-time readers would probably know that my first encounter with this brand goes back more than a decade, when I was still in Türkiye. I was using a free Blogger account by Google and trying to post simple reviews on such guitar products. It was around 2013 when I first met Music Nomad F-One Oil, as I was really interested in making my own essential oil mix for maintaining & caring for fretboards! It was pretty odd that I could find these products in Türkiye, but not in Europe easily. After I moved to the EU, I had to look for alternatives (such as Sandberg Fingerboard Oil). Luckily, years later, Music Nomad products have become widely available, especially in Thomann’s catalogue.
As you may guess, I got all my Music Nomad products from Thomann, and I recommend you do the same!
Check out Music Nomad Frine on Thomann
You can also check out Reverb to supply Frine, as there are tons of resellers on Reverb listing MN’s products.
Check out Music Nomad Frine on Reverb
Last but not least, you can also check out Amazon. Almost all MN products can be found there, too.
Check out Music Nomad Frine on Amazon
Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
