What a firework does in the air has almost nothing to do with the size of the box it came in. Two 500 gram cakes can carry the same shot count and the same burn time and look nothing alike, because what you actually see is the effect. This is the vocabulary, in the order you are most likely to meet it.
Browse every product by type in the Fireworks Bible Guide Pick a type and see every product of that kind.
Counts drawn from 31,111 products in our own catalog. Last built 2026-10-14.
A spherical break of coloured stars that burn without leaving trails. It is the baseline aerial break and the one most people picture when they think of a firework.
Telling it apartAgainst a chrysanthemum: a peony is made of dots. You see the stars, not the lines between them.
The same sphere as a peony, except every star trails, so the shape is drawn in lines rather than dots. The trails make it read larger than a peony of the same size.
Telling it apartAgainst a peony: a chrysanthemum draws the sphere. Look for lines running from the centre outward.
Fewer stars, but each one larger and thrown further, so the break is sparser and wider than a peony built on the same shell.
Telling it apartAgainst a peony: count the stars. A dahlia has visibly fewer and fatter ones, and they reach further before they die.
A dense mass of gold or silver trails that hangs in the air and drifts after the shape itself is gone. Usually the effect that fills the sky in a finale.
Telling it apartAgainst a willow: a brocade hangs and spreads. A willow falls.
Long trails that arc over and droop toward the ground like the branches of a willow tree, burning most of the way down.
Telling it apartAgainst a brocade: watch the ends of the trails. A willow's bend downward and keep falling.
A thick rising trunk, then a small number of heavy fronds that arc outward and over, so the whole thing reads as a tree rather than a sphere.
Telling it apartAgainst everything else: a palm has a visible trunk on the way up. Very few other breaks show you the rise.
A wide, low, arcing break that opens outward more than upward, so it sits across the sky rather than filling a ball.
Telling it apartAgainst a palm: a crown has no trunk. It opens wide from the point it reaches.
A dense gold hanging break that persists longer than anything else in the sky. Nishiki kamuro is the name most manufacturers print for the heaviest version.
Telling it apartAgainst a brocade: same family, more of it. A kamuro is defined by how long it stays lit.
Heavy stars thrown outward that then fall almost straight down on thick trails, so the effect hangs below the break point.
Telling it apartAgainst a willow: a horsetail drops nearly vertically. A willow arcs before it falls.
Stars arranged in a flat circle rather than a sphere.
Telling it apartIt only reads as a ring when the shell happens to face you. From the side the same shell looks like a line.
Sharp, straight, hard-thrown lines radiating from the centre that stop abruptly instead of fading.
Telling it apartAgainst a chrysanthemum: a spider's legs are straight and end sharply. A chrysanthemum's trails curve and fade.
A hard, heavy break with a small number of very thick radial lines. Loud and blunt rather than pretty.
Telling it apartAgainst a spider: a coconut has fewer and much thicker lines, and usually a report with it.
A second, smaller break of a different colour sitting inside the main one, so you get a core within the sphere.
Telling it apartLook at the centre. If there is a distinct inner ball in another colour, that is the pistil.
A dense field of sharp popping sparks after the break. It is the single most common effect word in this catalog, and it is as much a sound as a picture.
Telling it apartAgainst glitter: crackle pops audibly and the sparks are hard and white. Glitter is quiet.
A shimmering, sparkling trail texture, usually gold, that twinkles as it falls rather than burning smooth.
Telling it apartAgainst titanium: glitter shimmers warm and gold. Titanium is a harder, whiter, sharper spark.
Stars that blink on and off instead of burning steadily, so the break flickers and twinkles in place.
Telling it apartAgainst glitter: a strobe blinks the whole star. Glitter sparkles along a trail while the star keeps burning.
Each star travels out and then splits into four, so the sky fills with small crosses in a lattice.
Telling it apartWatch one star. If it breaks again into a cross partway out, that is a crossette.
Large, evenly spaced single stars, few enough to follow individually as they travel.
Telling it apartAgainst a peony: pearls are fewer and slower, and you can count them.
Slow, heavy drops that fall a long way before they die, so the effect keeps working well below the break.
Telling it apartAgainst a willow: time rain falls as separate drops rather than continuous trails.
Stars that flutter and drift sideways as they come down instead of falling straight, the way a leaf does.
Telling it apartIt is the only effect where the stars visibly wander. Nothing else moves like it.
Bright white silver sparks, harder and sharper than glitter, often used on the rise as well as in the break.
Telling it apartAgainst glitter: titanium is white and hard edged. Glitter is gold and soft.
The visible trail an item leaves on the way up. A rising effect is a tail with colour, glitter or crackle worked into it.
Telling it apartIt is the part before anything breaks. If you can see the shot climb, that is the tail.
A single thick rising star with a heavy trail, either breaking small at the top or not breaking at all.
Telling it apartAgainst a tail: a comet is the whole effect. A tail is the lead-in to something else.
Example: a single shot 22mm mine. Press the button to hear it.
The entire payload fired out of the tube at once from ground level, opening as a wide cone with nothing rising first.
Telling it apartA mine is instant and starts at the ground. Everything else starts where the shell gets to.
Small stars that dart and swim outward on erratic paths rather than travelling straight.
Telling it apartAgainst a spider: fish wander and change direction. Spider legs are straight.
Example: a rocket with a whistling tail. Press the button to hear it.
A sound effect on the rise, produced by the composition rather than by any visual element. Often paired with very little to look at.
Telling it apartJudge it with your ears. A whistle can carry a shot that shows almost nothing.
Example: a rocket that ends with a report. Press the button to hear it.
The bang. A flash and a hard crack with little or no colour, used to punctuate a sequence or end it.
Telling it apartAgainst crackle: a report is one loud crack. Crackle is hundreds of small ones.
A falling sheet of sparks, either hung from a line or thrown downward from a break, reading as a curtain rather than a shape.
Telling it apartIt falls as a continuous sheet. A willow falls as separate trails.
Items that turn rather than travel, either spinning in place or climbing while spinning so the path corkscrews.
Telling it apartNothing else moves in circles. If the light is going round, this is it.
Many small shots fired one after another so fast that the cake seems to rip across the sky in one long burst, often a hundred or more shots in a few seconds.
Telling it apartAgainst a fan: zipper is about speed, fan is about angle. A box that says zipper fan does both.
Tubes angled outward from one point, so the shots open across the sky in a spread like the ribs of a hand fan instead of all going straight up.
Telling it apartAgainst a straight-up cake: watch the base. Every shot in a fan leaves from the same spot and leans a different way.