The French call it je ne sais quoi. A certain something. Hard to express. Tough to put your finger on.

Even if you don’t speak French, you may find je ne sais quoi the simplest way to describe the subtle, elusive qualities of CORIAN^® that make it so inviting and -pleasurable to touch. Because even professionals who work with CORIAN every day seem to struggle to put into words the unique way CORIAN feels.

"CORIAN appears to be more than a surface material. It presents a very friendly, soft personality and has a certain glow that makes us very curious. It has depth.That’s why it’s so engaging. It draws us in and we feel the urge to touch it."

So explains Eva Maddox of Eva Maddox Associates, Inc., a Chicago interior architect firm. Maddox and her colleagues have designed a wide variety of structures crafted from CORIAN, from furniture to entire rooms.

Linda Nordin owns Jaeggers, a company in New Jersey which creates a range of unique consumer products with CORIAN, from lighting switchplates to towel holders. Although she works with CORIAN every day, Nordin finds it hard to describe the extraordinary tactile attributes of CORIAN. "It’s hard to express," she confesses. "CORIAN is soft and silky to the touch and very elegant. It has its own special warmth."

Jim Lemke agrees. "It’s not cold to the touch, like stone. CORIAN is softer, much warmer. No surface in stone has the same smoothness. Yet CORIAN doesn’t feel like plastic." Lemke’s firm, Innovative Surfacing in Fremont, California, creates Stone Canyon" kitchen accessories of CORIAN. "All our designs beg to be touched. CORIAN appeals to people’s sense of touch. So they touch it some more!"

"I don’t know how to explain it. CORIAN has a softness. A silky, satiny feel. There are a lot of solid surface products, but they don’t have the same feel," says Rick Patten of Marriott Owner ship Resorts, Inc., a company developing and managing time-share villas across the U.S. "And with very little maintenance over time, CORIAN maintains that quality. It’s amazing stuff." Patten is currently involved in replacing laminate surfaces in the kitchens of earlier villas with CORIAN. All new villas are built with CORIAN surfaces.

Ye Olde Hampshire Quillworks in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, is a retail store specializing in sculpture, jewelry, lighting and writing instruments crafted from CORIAN. Neil Kenny, husband of the store owner, crafts many objects from CORIAN himself. Kenny gives up trying to describe how CORIAN feels after a few words. "It’s very hand-friendly. Why that is I can’t tell you."

Amid all the confusion as to how to explain how CORIAN feels, at least one thing is clear:

The best way to understand it is to touch it yourself.