Stone Masters Blog

The most popular soapstone is the darker black species. By far and away the black soapstone species are in more demand than the green, dappled, gray. There is no good or bad, right or wrong but there are differences between soapstone species that you should be aware of.

Soft (high talc) soapstone scratch more easily than harder soapstone species (lower talc content) stones. Conversely the soft stones lend to sanding out scratches more readily.

The hard soapstone species lend making more suitable sinks in terms of standing up to the abuse the bottom of a sink is subjected to. I have a soapstone sink in my home and we choose a softer soapstone. We choose this material because we liked the color and we do not mind the patina. In fact we encourage the patina as it goes with the rustic farmhouse style that is our home.

There are several options to darken your soapstone, the most well known is mineral oil and in the past few years the Dry Wax has proven to be easy to apply and longer lasting than the traditional mineral oil treatment. The Third option that I discovered recently struck me by surprise when I saw it only because I never thought of it until I saw it and that is ager.

What is ager? It is a darkening agent or a color enhancer for natural stone. we use it every day in granite production but never thought of using it for soapstone until i saw it and what is nice about it is that it is nearly a one and done treatment that theoretically never needs to be re-applied.

Crema Bordeaux Granite slabs make great granite counter-tops. This is a beautiful and exotic Brazilian stone that has reds, creams, grays, and black colors running throughout the slab. The wild patterns and color diversity is indicative of a more fissured stone.  It is a some what fragile this stone so it is almost always prepared with a high quality resin finish making it rather stain resistant.

This stone will be patterned and colors the same from one adjacent slab to the next and yet vary wildly from one bundle to another. Every time I buy this stone I am looking at a completely different and unique bundle.

If I had to sum this stone us in one work it would be "Variable". If your neighbor has the same stone Crema Bordeaux you may not even me able to tell that it is the same. That is how much it varies each time you see it.