Solid Surfacing or Solid Surfaces

Solid Surfacing or solid surfaces can be a wide range of products. In the solid surfaces category we find many different types of man made stone, although solid surfaces implies a non-porous surface, which is on of the things that distinguish high quality products from no quality.
So what is the difference between solid surfaces and engineered stone?
None, in truth these products have appeared in the market about 30/40years ago, and basically they're are called by many names, here goes a list:

1. Solid surfaces
2. Engineered stone
3. Man made stone
4. Agglomerate Stone - used as the official definition in CE Markings
5. Conglomerate Stone
6. Cultured Stone
7. Compact Stone
8. Silestone - it's a brand but due to the strong marketing many people actually call the product silestone
9. Fake stone

So basically, we may be speaking of different products, but they have more or less the same objective, they imitate to certain perfection the natural stone.
These products are normally constituted by 3 relevant parts: the natural or un-natural grain, the binding agent and artificial colouring pigments. Most common products in this category are quartz based agglomerates, which are composed of quartz grain, bonded together with polyester resin.