Get a piece of plastic to test on, and spray it with a plastic-compatible spray paint (there are many at HD; i just sprayed my blue plastic rain barrel with hammered bronze paint, it looks great). If it still looks too painted to you or the wrong color, get a little tube of rub 'n buff, which comes in some good metallic tones, and rub on/wipe off color until you get the color/texture you want. When the wax dries, the rub-n-buff won't budge. I used it to adjust the tone of the house letters on my front door to match the antique mail slot, and a year later, the finish is still perfect. So it will stand up to bathroom humidity of it can stand up to a new england nor'easter. I don't recommend rub 'n buff directly onto plastic, but I believe it will adhere well to painted plastic. Here is a link that might be useful: rub 'n buff

It does not need to match. But that's my opinion. Some folk are more sensitive to matchy-match finishes than others. If you really feel compelled that you need to have it all match for your own satisfaction, then have at it. But if you're matching it because you think others may think your design choices odd...I encourage you to design for yourself. Not others. More opinion: Think of things being in groupings. The shower. The vanity above the countertop (faucet, etc). The vanity below the countertop (door/drawer knobs and pulls). And so on. Sometimes everything all matchy-match is just wonderful. Sometimes it's overwhelming or monotonous. Too much of the same. Too much variety can look haphazard and disconcerting to the eye. There's no flow. But there's a sweet spot in between, I think all can be well as long as things somehow relate to one another. I always go along the lines of style being one thing, color another, and finish a third. Again, it's usually good to keep them some of those three things related as you go from one grouping to the next. A contemporary "some thing" might not look right next to a traditional "other thing", especially if one was a patina'd ORB and the other was polished chrome. All three things are different. My master bathroom has to be the least matching of any I've seen. My wife picked out what she wanted, but we grouped things together. She chose ORB sconces, so I painted the mirror in between the sconces to match the color of the ORB. I felt having the mirror the same color as the sconces sort of added visual mass to that grouping. Without the ORB-colored mirror, the sconces might have looked lonely out there on their own. That's one grouping. We have a polished nickel faucet on top of the countertop. However, below the countertop, the knobs and hinges are brushed pewter. While different, they relate as they're in the same color family and similar in style. My wife's countertop make-up mirror? Polished chrome. In the shower? Polished Chrome. All by itself, its own grouping. All that non-matching stuff, it may sound absolutely gawd-awful, and some might think it is. But my wife is happy with how it looks, and if she's happy, I am too. One thing I will say is that in the design and construction phase, you fret over every detail. But after 6 months you'll probably grow blind to the things that kept you awake at night with worry.

Chrome is always in "style" if you are looking for style and it is easy to keep clean and always looks good. If you want something that always looks clean and easy to clean and keep looking good, chrome. When we were doing our revamp for all the bathrooms, the lady who had the most to gain by selling some of the other metals told me quite honestly that she opted for chrome in her house and after working with and having many different metals in various homes, when she built her "permanent" home, she put chrome throughout.

Jane, thank you for the input. I should have posed my question a bit clearer. I need help with metal for lighting, faucets, etc. I'm looking for suggestions for the entire (overall) look of the bathroom. At first I was going with polished nickel, but the faucet I want to use (Delta/trinsic) does not come in polished nickel. The light fixtures I Iike only come in polished nickel and not chrome. It's just so frustrating. I thought I could do mixed metals, but unsure of that too. I read a number of folks say don't mix polished nickel and chrome. I was thinking matte black, but nervous. My husband won't go for brass (after posing my above question), though I agree, it would be interesting. Thank you again, and if you have any other thoughts, I'd greatly appreciate them. The double vanity is 80" (white), there will be a free standing tub (white), with separate shower in white subway tiles, the quartz counter tops are a medium gray, dark slate floors, and lastly white walls. It's so hard for me to use my imagination and picture different metals in the space.