The Cult of Corian® – 51 Years of Stunning Surfaces

People who like Corian® don’t just like Corian®. They love it. We should know – it´s our biggest seller by a country mile. Customers regularly send us emails of thanks, often months after it was installed in their bathrooms, to tell us how gorgeous it looks, how well it performs as a material and how they’re thinking of having their next project done in it, too. 

(And, hey, if you’ve shopped with us and are reading this, please feel free to do the same – we’re suckers for a kind word.) 

Our own Sales Rep loves Corian® so much, she not only sells it, she’s got it in her own bathroom too, which you can see, here, at the top of the page (cat not included.) 

So, what is it about this stunning, non-porous, heat-resistant, 10-year-guaranteed, scratch-resistant, seamless, renewable material that makes it so attractive? Ha ha, very funny – yes, there’s an ‘asked and answered’ question, if ever there was one. In short, Corian® is awesome. 

The science bit

OK, we’ll keep it simple. (We’d like you to keep reading, after all.) Basically, Corian® was devised in a lab by the clever DuPont company in Buffalo, New York in 1967 who patented it faster than you can say, ‘this is going to fly off the shelves’ when they realised its potential uses.

Composed of acrylic polymer and alumina trihydrate, its thermoformable, which means it bends under very high temperatures over a sustained period. When it cools back down to non-oven temperatures, though, it’s as solid as you’d expect any surface described as ‘luxury’ to be – very, very solid indeed.

What this means is that it can be shaped into all kinds of gorgeous formations*. Now, newbies to Corian® fandom usually start out by having kitchen worktops made from it – and it’s great for that. Then, once they realise that it’s completely non-porous and that you can’t see the seams between pieces, their love for the material goes into overdrive.

And this is where it starts making its way into its perfect environment – the bathroom.

Shaping your own bathroom vision

Because Corian®’s material composition doesn’t let a drop of water through, it has become a favourite of luxury bathroom re-modellers in recent years. It can be moulded into beautiful basins and freestanding bathtubs and it can be pieced together seamlessly to make stunning recessed tubs. It loves humid environments and performs brilliantly in even the steamiest bathrooms – no discolouration, no stains and easy cleaning and re-buffing.

That’s why discerning interiors fanatics have been choosing Corian® more and more in recent years as its availability in the UK has increased. And the company has responded in kind. So, not only can you now get a huge variety of bathtubs, washbasins, shower trays and vanity tops in Your New Favourite Material™, you can also get it in a whole new range of colours and styles, to boot.

As far back as 2002, the Corian® Private Collection was introduced to mimic the randomness of patterns found in nature – namely different types of stone. A range of semi-translucent colours was then launched in 2007 to allow for some sexy backlighting. America’s home improvement queen Martha Stewart even got in on the action with her own Corian® collection, back in 2010.

We have to say that the classic Glacier White is still the most popular, at least with our customers, and there’s a reason for that – it pretty much instantaneously turns even a drab, dingy bathroom into a private space of heavenly calm and invitation. So, you know, it’s not a case of buying colour for colour’s sake…

Still, today, there’s a whole host of different types of Corian® out there on the market and, together, they are revolutionising the luxury bathroom market thanks to their sheer diversity, customisation potential and relatively low retail price (relative to the rest of the luxury market, that is). And it doesn’t stop there.

We saw a demonstration of an in-development Corian® product just the other week that is pretty much the Superman of bathroom surfaces. Not sure we’re allowed to say much more than that, at this point, but believe us: it rocked! I guess all that’s left to say is, watch this space…

*Note: did anyone see the Designer K&B Awards in early October? If so, you’ll have noticed that their beautiful trophy was made of Corian® – that should speak volumes.

Find out more about Corian® here.