Find the brand name of your countertop, not the material category, and clean to that brand's page. "Quartz" is not one set of rules. Cambria's product care page prohibits bleach and names Soft Scrub as a product not to use; Caesarstone's care page lists Soft Scrub Liquid Gel among its approved cleaners for tougher blemishes. Two engineered quartz surfaces, opposite instructions on the same bottle under your sink. Until you know the brand, clean with warm water, mild dish soap and a soft cloth, which is the one regime every brand below permits.

What each of the four brands permits

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Brand and materialRoutine cleaningNotably prohibitedSealing
Cambria (quartz)Warm water, soft cotton cloth, mild soapBleach, oven cleaners, Comet, Soft Scrub, S.O.S. pads, pumice products, paint removers, tarnish or silver cleanersNever required; no sealers, penetrants or topical treatments
Caesarstone (quartz)Mild detergent in warm water, or a pH-neutral cleanerOven and grill cleaners, floor strippers, toilet bowl cleaners, oil soaps, drain products, granite/marble cleaners, trichloroethane and methylene chlorideNot needed; surface is nonporous
Silestone (quartz, Cosentino)Q-Action, or water and neutral soap, then rinse and dryAnything above pH 10, caustic soda, paint strippers, oven cleaners, scouring pads, hydrofluoric acid; avoid chlorine-based productsDo not use water-repellents, sealants or polishes
Corian (solid surface, DuPont)Warm soapy water, an ammonia-based household cleaner, or a dedicated countertop cleanerWindow cleaners (waxy build-up); cutting directly on the surface; hot pans set down without a trivetNot applicable

Where they disagree: abrasives and bleach

The sharpest split is on abrasives. Caesarstone calls for a non-abrasive cleaner such as Soft Scrub Liquid Gel on tougher marks, and allows Bar Keepers Friend powder or oxalic acid on a damp cloth for rust and metal marks only. Cambria puts Soft Scrub and Comet on its prohibited list and rules out abrasive or harsh scrub pads as well. Silestone's Cosentino use and care document bans scouring pads outright and sends you to a microfiber cloth or wet paper instead.

The second split is bleach. Cambria rules it out entirely. Silestone permits it with conditions: rinse the surface with plenty of water afterwards, and never leave bleach or solvents in permanent contact, because they can affect the surface after 12 hours. Caesarstone's care page does not mention bleach at all, so there is no brand instruction to fall back on there.

Corian is the only one of the four you can sand

Corian solid surface is repairable in a way engineered quartz is not, and its care instructions follow from that. Mild abrasive cleansers such as Soft Scrub are permitted for removing blotches and fine scratches, and Corian names specific Scotch-Brite pads for refinishing: the maroon 7447 A VFN pad for a matte finish and the gray 7448 S ULF pad for a semi-gloss finish. That is a sanding-and-blending operation. No quartz brand offers one.

The flip side is a prohibition the others do not carry: never cut or chop directly on Corian, and do not set hot pots and pans down on it without a trivet. It also warns off window cleaners, which leave a waxy film that dulls the finish. For disinfecting a Corian sink, the brand describes a spray of three parts household bleach to one part water, left for a few hours or overnight - a sink treatment rather than a countertop routine.

Where all four agree

Three rules hold across every one of these pages, so you can act on them before you have identified anything:

  1. Use a trivet. Silestone warns that the temperature difference between a hot pan and a cold slab can damage the surface. Caesarstone says to always place hot cookware on a trivet or hot pads. Corian prohibits direct contact outright.
  2. Rinse spills fast. Silestone says to remove any prohibited product with plenty of water and neutral soap as quickly as possible. Corian says to flush strong chemicals with soapy water immediately.
  3. Keep oven cleaner and paint stripper off the counter. All three quartz brands name those two categories specifically.

Silestone adds one more that is easy to break by accident: do not leave standing water on the surface for long periods, especially near the sink.

Finding the brand when nobody wrote it down

Work through these in order. Stop at the first one that gives you a brand and a product name.

  1. The installation invoice or kitchen contract. Fabricators normally itemize the slab by brand and color name, for example a Caesarstone color code or a Cambria design name.
  2. The offcut. Many installs leave a scrap piece in a basement or garage, and slabs often carry a printed or stickered brand mark on the underside.
  3. The fabricator or installer. Send them the invoice date, your address and a photo, and ask for the slab brand and color.
  4. The builder or previous owner, if the counter came with the house.

A color that looks like a photo online is a lead, not an identification, and design names get reused across brands. Reach the end of that list without a brand, and warm water with mild soap is where you stay until someone confirms it, because all four manufacturers above permit exactly that.

Once you know the brand, print or save the one page that applies, note the date you checked it, and keep it with the surface it describes rather than filing it by brand. A household with a Cambria island and a Corian bathroom vanity needs two different answers. Keep each under its own counter. Turn the page into something usable rather than something stored: build a cleaning task card that names the surface, the approved product and the frequency, so whoever cleans the kitchen is not reading a PDF at the counter. Keep the source links with your appliance manuals in the same place, using a household reference folder, and revisit the record if the surface is ever refinished or replaced.

Sources and references