A thermal ink jet printhead has an outer, metallic hydrophobic coating on its front face to repel ink. Eliminating the accumulation of ink at the nozzles of the printhead allows an ink droplet to be accurately ejected and ensures the directionality of the ejected ink droplet onto the printing medium. The outer coating is formed of a metal selected from the group of noble metals, including gold, platinum, palladium, silver, rhodium and ruthenium. An adhesion layer is preferably deposited between the front face of the printhead and the outer ink-repellent coating. The metallic coating is preferably applied by electroplating, wet electroless plating, evaporation, sputtering, ion plating, CVD or plasma CVD.