What is Quartz?

Today, I want to talk to you about quartz. What is quartz? What are the brands of quartz? Why should I get quartz? What is going on with quartz?

I don’t want anyone to think that quartz is a dominant product and granite is old-fashioned. Definitely not the case. Quartz, by all accounts, is maybe anywhere from 10-20% of the market and definitely has a lot of positives about it.

Quartz is basically a material type and is a nationally quarried product, which is the quartz, but it’s made in a man-made factory for polymers, and it compresses and glues together. They can basically control color tone, pattern, whereas granite, what you kind of cut out of the earth and polish, is what you get. You have no option whatsoever to change it. That’s partly why quartz is so popular.

Also why it’s popular is it’s very dense. By having that process in the factory and that quartz itself is dense, you’re basically creating a very, very, very, almost impenetrable surface, where it’s very hard for the stains to work through. Whereas granite, depending on the type of granite, density varies greatly.

One of the key advantages of quartz is that it’s specializing and mimicking travertines, marbles, and limestones – naturally quarried products – that are almost, at this point, practically banned from use in a kitchen because they stain and damage so easily.

So you’ve seen over six, seven years, this progression of focus intently on mimicking marble patterns in particular, and getting them to look more natural, right? And they do look more natural. We’ve had a video blog in the past where we talked about marble-looking quartz which you guys can reference.

Now, as far as brands of quartz, there are many brands. The brands that are the most popular – and spend the most money marketing, so you probably know them by name – is Silestone, Caesarstone, LG Viatera. Cambria is another one that’s a pretty big brand.

The brands that you might not know of are the other brands that don’t spend as much money on marketing, but are just as good, have the same machinery, and the same quality control. Like Vicostone, there’s private label brands like Trader Joe’s. Midwest is a local supplier that has their own private label. AGM has MetroQuartz, which is a private label. Pacific Shore has a private label. Daltile has a private label. So they’re definitely out there. There’s anywhere from four to ten brands at your disposal.

So when you’re picking out quartz, what I think is the best thing to do is literally pick the quartz that you like, that looks the best. I really believe that within the brands that we carry, that we named, the quality control was pretty much almost the same, no matter which brand it is, and it’s going to be beautiful.

Just pick what you like. Don’t worry about brand. Forget brand exists. Just look at the samples, pick whichever one that you think goes best for your kitchen or your bathroom.