Blanco Zeus is now Zeus Extreme : How does the color naming work in this business?

Blanco Zeus, Glaciar, Nero Portoro, Botticino, and many others are names most peole in the engineered stone business hear about daily. I believe most of you have wondered how the naming process of the colors and series is done. Can say that their are no standards that influence the name or the series, it's mostly a marketing decision of the manufacturer. I've participated in some of these name picking marketing activities, and many times I believe the consumers must also wonder why they named the color with that specific name.

Historically, we have had an evolution regarding naming and products. Prior to the 90s, the most common and sold engineered stone products were engineered marble products, these colors are currently still available and most producers have settled to call them the Traditional Series. Way back then and as you can see in the picture, the majority of the texture was true natural marble, some very similar to the natural stone, so manufacturers in general started to call these products using the natural stones name, which quickly helped marketing these products, as most traditional marble stone names are easily recognized by the general consumer.
From the 90s until today, the evolution of this industry has surpassed all expectation, in the 80s most manufacturers had a very rigid offer of colors to the market, and the same color range besides limited it also would last several years practically unchanged. In Italy, even today, some manufacturers even use the same names for similar colors like Botticino, Nero Portoro, etc. While other producers would just use the color type and add it's origin, like Bianco Carrara (White is the color and Carrara is the place where it’s extracted from)
Another curiosity regarding color and series naming, in Asia most colors are identified by local manufacturers by numbers or a combination of letters and numbers, rarely do  we see Asia manufacturers using names. Although they tend to name the series with names, very common to see flower series, as one of them.
In the last few years, engineered stone colors have become similar to fashion item, which is constantly renewing itself. In general, 80% of sales is attained by 20% of the colors sold, in most companies it will be less than 10 colors. But the manufacturers need to keep renewing to keep their marketing machine working, so their research and development departments have become an important part of their business.
Most manufacturers have the products divided by type, especially producer who have both engineered marble and engineered quartz plants, so their top level product range will be divided into 2 or 3 groups. In the intermediate level they’ll have range or series, these are named according to the physical characteristics of the colors, the naming is based on the creativity of the marketing department and management. For example, Silestone created a few years ago the platinum series, with all colors using grey shades, this year they are launching the Nebula series, which is a vein series, a base color with a contrasting vein. So most colors in each series will have similarities, these can be made up on shade/color, raw materials used or even technology.
The naming of the colors, as I said before there is no standard and the creativity of each manufacturer is revealed through this naming effort. Some have used mythology in the names, others use ancient cities, and I’ve even seen Las Vegas casino names. Besides these non-related names to the colors, you will find that some manufacturers will just associate a word to the color, like a beige color is called sabbia (sand in Italian), arena (sand in Spanish), Dune, etc…
Behind the scenes there is logic behind the color naming process. And one of the latest curiosities, is that currently every producer is looking for the whitest white, and looking for the perfect name to define the color, we have seen colors like Blanco Zeus become Zeus Extreme (Silestone colors that have evolved) and Glaciar become Absolut White (Compacs Color range).

Creme of Marfil Mable

Crema of maril marble, is probably one of the most sold natural marble in the World. For those who may not be familiar with it, it has a light beige colour and normally some veins that combine perfectly with the stone. Today I’m dedicating this post to creme of marfil marble. Yes, natural marble, and creme marfil or crema marfil. A few years back a close friend bought creme marfil marble tiles 40 cm x 40 cm for his home. At the time, we had spoken about engineered marble, but he and his wife had the natural stone choice in their mind, and went ahead with the installation. I was invited to the home inauguration party, and it was a really good combination, and the floor looked fine back then regarding: shine, finish, edges, instalment, etc.  Well, a few weeks ago, my friend called me and asked for my opinion, after 6 years of living in the home and using it with some care and maintenance, I went to his home and quickly noticed a few things that had happened, namely:

1.  Big chips of pure stone just jumped out of place 
2. The resin from the veins has changed color, probably due to UV exposure, noticing a horrible effect on the tile
3.  Some veins have become small craters as the softer stone has disapeared
4. The shade of the stone has become uneven, due to some humidity that came in from the ground

The creme of marfil marble is a really beautiful natural stone, and in this specific case it has currently several problems, some easy to solve, but others a bit more costly.
To be honest with you, every product has pros and cons, in this case unfortunately due to several factors, problems arose, with the humidity that he has coming in through the ground underneath the floor, I figure he would probably have bigger problems if he installed other products that are less porous than this stone, like engineered quartz or even porcelain tiles.
It's not my intention to reveal specific problems with creme marfil marble, it's more to say, choose wisely the product you intend to install. Make sure you follow all the manufacturers requirements to avoid installation problems. Everyone does mistakes and  the decision to install a product should be taken seriously, and other aspects besides colour should be carefully evaluated.
Sometimes the information available regarding a specific product may be hard to find, in the engineered stone business fortunately it's standard procedure by most manufacturers to have installation, maintenance and care guides. A few years ago, the natural stone business lacked of documentation and certification. Today things have changed, and also natural stones have CE standards to obied. So when buying or installing make sure your creme of marfil marble or any other natural stone has a CE certificate.