Ceramic

Ceramic and porcelain are both fired clay, and the difference between them is how far the firing goes. Porcelain is fired denser and absorbs very little water. Ceramic is more absorbent and softer, and its colour lives in a glaze on the surface rather than running through the body.

That distinction decides almost every specification question that follows. Ceramic is easier to cut, lighter to handle and cheaper to buy — and it belongs in positions where those advantages are not paid for in wear.

Where it performs

• Walls, backsplashes and splashbacks
• Bathroom and powder-room walls
• Low-traffic residential floors
• Decorative fields and patterned work, where the glaze allows print and relief that stone cannot

What to watch

• **The colour is in the glaze, not through the body.** A chip exposes the biscuit underneath, which is usually a pale clay and obvious against a dark glaze. On a floor edge or an exposed corner this matters.
• **Check the rating rather than the look.** Ceramic and porcelain are hard to tell apart on a sample board. Absorption and abrasion ratings are the specification, and a wall-rated ceramic on a busy floor will not last.
• Its absorbency rules it out where freeze-thaw is in play, so exterior use needs porcelain instead.
• Lighter weight is a genuine advantage on a wall build-up and on upper floors — worth remembering when the alternative is stone.

Finishes

Glazed gloss, matte and satin are the common cases. Textured and structured glazes add slip resistance where a ceramic is used on a floor. The glaze is the finish; there is no honing or polishing after the fact as there is with stone.

Thickness

Sold by tile format rather than by slab, so thickness follows the tile — thinner than a stone slab and carried entirely by the setting bed. Where ceramic meets a thicker adjacent material, the transition is detailed rather than assumed.