Laurel and Laurel Reserve
The range divides into Laurel and Laurel Reserve. Reserve is the heavier of the two, listed at 8 mm with a 22 mil wear layer; plain Laurel is 5 mm with 20 mil. Both are cut at 9 by 48 inches and nothing else, where a typical range spreads across two or three formats. The core is the ordinary flexible type on all but a few of them.
That single size is a simplification rather than a limitation. Nine inches is at the wide end of the standard market and 48 is the common length, so the format suits ordinary rooms without the handling problems of the very long boards. What a buyer is choosing between here is weight and wear layer, not shape.
The 8 mm figure
This is the figure to hold on to when comparing Laurel Reserve with anything else. The 8 mm figure is the whole plank measured from the wear layer to the underside of the pad, and the manufacturer states the breakdown: 6 mm of core with a 2 mm pad bonded beneath it. The structural part of the board is 6 mm.
That matters because a competing plank advertised at 8 mm may be 8 mm of core with no pad at all, and the two are not the same product. The core is what spans an uneven subfloor and what the floor feels like underfoot; the pad is what quietens it. Both are worth having, but a published total that folds them together will flatter a board against one that quotes its core alone. Luxury vinyl plank covers why the two numbers predict different things.
The attached pad
Every plank in the range arrives with the pad already attached, which is less common than it sounds and removes a decision rather than adding a feature. A floating floor over a hard subfloor sounds hollow without something between the two, and a bonded pad deals with that before the floor is delivered.
It also means a separate underlay is generally neither needed nor wanted, since two layers of cushion under a floating floor leave it feeling soft underfoot. What still belongs to the manufacturer is whether anything else is permitted beneath it, particularly over a slab where a moisture barrier may be a separate requirement.
20 and 22 mil wear layers
Twenty and twenty two mil, against the 12 mil that carries a large part of the vinyl market. That puts the whole range in the bracket usually pointed at halls, kitchens and households with animals, not at bedrooms, and it is true of the lighter build as well as the heavier one.
So the choice between Laurel and Laurel Reserve is not really a durability decision. Both surfaces are specified for hard use; what separates them is the core beneath, and therefore how the floor handles an imperfect subfloor and how solid it feels. Prescott offers the same 20 mil class in a rigid core build at two plank sizes.
Rooms named by the manufacturer
Almost every product in the range names a kitchen, most of them name a bathroom, and a third go as far as a basement. That is a broad specification for a flexible vinyl plank, and it follows from the pad and the wear layer, not from the core, which is the ordinary flexible type, not rigid.
It also explains why the range has no light duty option in it. A floor pointed at kitchens, bathrooms and basements is being sold for the wet, busy half of a house, and a thin surface there would be a false economy. The construction and the rooms it is aimed at agree with each other.
Laurel colors: beige and blonde
Laurel leans heavily toward the pale end, with beige and blonde tones accounting for most of it and browns and grays reduced to the margins. A range this concentrated is easier to specify when the room is already decided and harder when it is not, so the palette settles it before a single board does.
Everything is matte, radiant heat approval runs through the range, and a commercial rating is quoted on each board. The wider light palette sits under beige and blonde luxury vinyl.
