New quartz counter tops have these strange smiles all over - pretty sure the slab we viewed before buying did not have these - looks like a manufacturing defect to me.

our builder says that’s just how it is.

I see them all the time and they are on every piece - very similar size - about 2 inches across - just sitting there smiling at me!

I don’t agree. I have never seen this. I have Silestone and what I see on mine are tiny little circle blobs. But nothing you would overtly unless you are looking very closely.

Yes, it is made made and not perfect, but those are not part of the pattern.

I've seen whole slabs of almost all the brands of white quartz and never seen these. I don't believe your builder. Of course they would say that, they have no incentive to tell you the truth. This would really bug me. Call the manufacture and ask if a local rep for your area can come out and look at them.

Thanks - I will follow up with the manufacturer - not sure what can be done now though!

I also notice on the edges that the veins do not go right through - i’m starting to doubt everything now. Is this expected?

I have those. They are continuation of the vein.

Tiny imperfections we can all ignore. Like tiny blobs that are are mine. I only notice when wiping down the counter and really paying attention.

Indo have a spot that was cut too closely so the vein has a straight edge. I choose to ignore it as my overall counter looks fine.

The "smiles" each have little ends on them and they look to be nearly the same diameter. The odds of that happening randomly are astronomical. Maybe they're vacuum pod marks from the fabricator/distributor? Can you feel them? Take a picture with low level light over one please.

A bigger sink would eliminate the first one probably.

These are all different smiles - all in very prominent places. On every pice in the house. 3 bathrooms a desk and a powder room.

These are all different smiles - all in prominent places on all pieces. 3 bathrooms, 1 desk and 1 powder room.

Sorry you are dealing with this. I have not seen those type of marks on ours which look similar to yours. We have different issues with ours more an installation problem than manufacturing I think, but the veins and our edges do not follow through either.

I would say this is not normal, and I'd be pretty annoyed that it was installed without someone pointing out this flaw. It looks like someone took a permanent marker to it. For such an expensive piece in your kitchen, I'd say this is not ok.

it’s MSI Calacatta Classique.

It looks like they dumped some cut up twine into the quartz mixture!

Doesn't look normal to me.

No smileys in the photos at the MSI site.

I will follow up with the manufacturer

Problem with that is that MSI is primarily a distributor:

Built and maintained internally, our systems enable us to source products globally, then stock them in over 25 distribution centers in North America

MSI is a late comer to manufacturing quartz:

https://www.msisurfaces.com/news/msi-announces-joint-venture-with-spectrum-quartz-to-build-a-domestic-state-of-the-art-quartz-manufacturing-facility/

There is a good chance that your quartz pattern was manufactured by someone else under contract to MSI.

That has got to be a manufacturing flaw -- am I correct in seeing that the smiles are a different color from the veins? They are brown and the veins are gray.

This does really make me think something got dumped into the mix by mistake when it was being fabricated, or one of the dye nozzles was leaking a tad while crossing over, which might explain the long-dripped shape.

The smiles are brown. The veins are grey AND brown. mainly grey but with some brown streaks.

It looks like me the brown was supposed to only be injected into the grey thicker veins to give them a realistic look.

Yep -- I'd say there's a dripping brown dye nozzle in the factory. Really hoping you can get them to resolve this adequately for you.

I have Silestone Quartz (color soapstone) and I don’t have any smile markings, just the light gray veining. It appears the smile markings may be a defect, I am sorry this happened to you and hope you get it resolved soon.

@Tim Williams Well, if it's any reassurance, if you can't get them replaced, at least you'll be stuck with happy-looking, unique smilies and not some kind of obscene outline. ;-) And the installation itself looks smooth and first-rate.

(But I'm sure they can do something since this is clearly a material defect.)

well I went down to MSI to take a look at a few more slabs and ask them. We viewed some slabs and none of them had the same smiles. Many had lines but they were not circular and looked natural - just as I remembered Some manager then came out and looked at my pictures and said he used to be a qc and he had seen them before. The manager did not agree my slab was defective . I said show me one slab with a circular line in the whole showroom or warehouse - we went off around the warehouse again - He could not - he just showed lots of lines but all wavy - not perfect smiles with a dot either end.I felt convinced I had a strong case.

He still did not agree I had a defective slab - but said he would arrange a home inspection. lets see if that happens. I have my suspicions they know more than they are letting on and just said that to get me out the warehouse!

These look very different to what I have and are from the Calcutta Classique in the warehouse. lines yes and about the same length but not circular.

Those lines look fine, your smiles would not be acceptable to me and my fabricator would have notified me. My first thought was sharpie but your photos don't quite look like that...

This is the picture on the MSI website:

Tim, what did MSI say when when they came out to look at your counters? we're about to get new counters and was planning on going with the calacatta classique. I was at the distraction distribution center in Lenexa, KS yesterday to look at the slabs and get samples are and I don't recall seeing a single slab with those weird smile lines