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Use a Phong shader to produce glossy plastic-looking sufaces. Phong shaders are good for modeling things like car and bathroom mouldings, and many high-tech polymers and plastics.

Aside from the attributes described here, the Phong shader inherits many attributes from its parents Reflect and Lambert. Maya also has a PhongE shader, which is very similar, and can be used to make the same kinds of materials. The difference is mostly a matter of personal preference. Other kinds of shaders you can use:
For unpolished surfaces, like chalk or matte paint, use a Lambert shader. For metallic surfaces, such as brass or aluminum, use a Blinn shader. For microgrooved surfaces like CDs, brushed metal, or hair, use an Anisotropic shader.
In the table below, important attribute have their names indicated in bold in the description column.

This node is MP safe

Node name Parents Classification MFn type Compatible function sets
phong reflect shader/surface:drawdb/shader/surface/phong kPhong kBase
kNamedObject
kDependencyNode
kLambert
kReflect
kPhong

Related nodes

lambert, reflect, phongE, blinn, anisotropic, volumeShader, simpleVolumeShader, surfaceShader, displacementShader, layeredShader, useBackground, defaultShaderList, shadingMap

Attributes (1)

cosinePower

Long name (short name) Type Default Flags
cosinePower (cp) float 20.0 outputinputconnectablestorablekeyable
Cosine Power is used to control the "tightness" of the specular highlights (also called 'hot spots') on the surface. The minimum value is 2. The higher the value, the more tighly focussed (smaller) is the highlight.