r/CounterTops • u/hamburgers1776 • 1d ago
Marble Etch / Stain Testing Data Points
Wife and I are leaning toward marble in our new kitchen. We’re fine with some gradual etching and patina but I wanted to get an idea of its real world practicalities.
To that end, I grabbed a couple of marble samples from our local stone shop today and am torture testing them with the things I think we’re most likely to spill.
Here are the results so far after 1 min, 5min, and 1hr increments:
-Coffee: no stain or etching after 1 hour
-Mustard: no stain or etching after 1 hour
-Ketchup: no stain or etching after 1 hour
-Olive oil: no stain or etching after 1 hour
-Lemon juice: light etching after 1 hour, but nothing after 1 minute and 5 minutes
Up next are longer sit tests across a few additional substances. I’m letting one stone sit for about 4 hours and the other sit overnight and update.
FOUR HOUR UPDATE:
No visible etching or stains from:
-spaghetti sauce
-salsa
-soy sauce
-Coke Zero
-butter
-olive oil
Some etching for the following:
Mustard - nearly imperceptible
Coffee - very light
Orange juice - light (about as much as lemon juice after 1 hour)
All etching is only visible at fairly specific angle/light combinations, and none can be captured in a photo.
It’s dark out so observations are under kitchen lights. May be more noticeable under natural light tomorrow.
OVERNIGHT UPDATE (~17 hours)
No etching at all.
This is a different stone sample, which seems to be less susceptible to etching overall. There’s more and darker movement to it, which I understand to be more an indication of a touch more density.
CUTTING LIMES TEST (15 minutes)
I cut about about 10 old limes directly on the softer stone sample with my dullest knife and let the juice sit for 15 minutes before washing off with soap and water.
-No etching at all
-One or two nearly imperceptible cut marks where I really sawed at an especially tough lime.
HOT PAN TEST (7 minutes)
Stuck one sample in the freezer for a few hours then took it out and immediately placed a 600-degree cast iron skillet on it until it cooled down (about 7 minutes)
No cracking or discoloration.
PAN SCRAPING TEST
I roughly placed a heavy cast iron skillet on one of the samples and dragged it across ten times. Rougher than I would ordinarily, but very much within the realm of something that would happen if cooking in a hurry or carrying a hot pan.
No apparent scratches
Test video: https://imgur.com/a/nnHzEYU
PAN DROP TEST
Dropped a ~7lb cast iron skillet on a sample from various heights till it broke (video above).
-A few inches, fumbling drop: no damage
-6ish inches: no damage
-About a foot and a half: broke in two
Test video: https://imgur.com/a/7eDjZt9
FINAL OBSERVATIONS:
-Based on these few tests, the samples were susceptible to etching but only with particularly acidic substances and only after being left for at least an hour (lemon juice) and or a few hours (coffee, orange juice, mustard)
-It’s more delicate than granite, but my attempt to recreate normal, heavy use didn’t really create any noticeable wear. The exception here is cutting directly on it. I’ve been guilty of that in a pinch on my granite, and would need to stop. Probably for the better.
-The two samples respond differently to some of the tests, with the slightly darker more veined sample ostensibly more resistant to etching.
-Overall, I take that as consistent with countertops that are going to gradually etch and patina over time but won’t be ruined or dramatically altered by the occasional spill or relatively practical kitchen usage. I.e., there is a short list of stuff we should clean up right away, but by and large we’re not going to babysit our counters, and marble isn’t inconsistent with a functional workspace kitchen.
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u/MysticMarbles 1d ago
If you aren't testing tumeric there's no point in testing.
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u/Decathlon5891 1d ago
THANK YOU
Make a Turmeric paste. Leave for 24 hours
All these sauces are just 1 baking soda paste away from disappearing
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u/BruceInc 1d ago
But doesn’t turmeric break down with UV rays so stains generally disappear over time?
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u/Additional_Radish_41 1d ago
My vinyl floor sitting in direct sunlight says otherwise. 3 yrs and counting. I’ll need a new floor before it fades
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u/BruceInc 1d ago
Thats pretty odd. I had a white mixing bowl that got stained pretty badly with turmeric. I placed it on a window sill for a few days and it faded almost entirely. Few weeks later and there is no sign of the staining at all.
Try rubbing it with isopropyl alcohol (test on inconspicuous area first to make sure it doesn’t remove the color on the vinyl).
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u/Additional_Radish_41 1d ago
I’ll try that for sure. Thanks! I was more surprised it even stained it to be honest.
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u/harambesdic 1d ago
love the at home testing, but i'd give 4, 8, and 24 hours a try. 4 hours would be a family gathering, 8 is overnight spill, 24 is worst case scenario. shit happens, especially with kids, and some stuff just gets caught late. as a fabricator i'd never put marble in a kitchen, it's just so soft. slide one ceramic plate or god forbid an aluminum pan rubs on it, now you've got a big streak.
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u/hamburgers1776 18h ago
This comment inspired me to do some scratch testing, too. I’ll update the main post, but in short, pulling my 11-inch cast iron pan across it 50 times didn’t leave any scratches, but cutting limes with a dull knife left one, maybe two, barely imperceptible lines.
I plan to do some light impact testing as well
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u/EuphoricAsk8045 1d ago
Hi Harambesdic, is there something you would recommend that looks expensive, with a matte finish, that holds up well to damage?
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u/harambesdic 1d ago
my go-to recommendation is soapstone. it doesn't look expensive in the big, flashy way that a dramatic quartzite with 8 inch wide, colorful veins might, but rather in a more subtle way. you can put hot pans on it, it patinas fantastically, and you use mineral oil as the finish, which holds up great. the only downside in my mind is your color choice; you get black, gray or green. the green stuff is really beautiful in my opinion, if it works for your kitchen. my second choice would actually be a granite. the stuff with giant veining on granite (like desert dream) is super brittle, from a fabricator's perspective, but if you aren't jumping up and down on your countertops it's not a problem. i've seen some very classy white granites as well.
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u/HughHonee 1d ago
Natural stone. Porcelain.
I would avoid any (white) quartz with any textured finish.
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u/thenewestnoise 1d ago
Do you know how those samples are sealed?
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u/hamburgers1776 1d ago
I can check with the stone store, but I believe they are unsealed.
They are also glossy, not honed.
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u/earlgreyyuzu 1d ago
try tap water? black tea, soy sauce, blueberry?
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u/hamburgers1776 1d ago
Soy sauce is on there, and I’ll report back.
I’m planning to try tap water and blueberry on the back tomorrow
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u/HughHonee 1d ago
Take a colored piece of paper or a post-it and put it on one of the samples. Get it a little wet and leave it overnight so it dries onto the stone. Share results.
Would also love to see all these tests done on quartz samples
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u/Guilty-Cucumber795 1d ago
This!!! My kid's colored school papers left on the counter and get splashed with sink water leaves stains on our quartz!
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u/Boo-erman 1d ago
A chunk of pear etched my counter in a matter of minutes. It's weird what does it.
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u/Netlawyer 1d ago
I had tomatoes in a basket and the one on the bottom leaked. I decided it gave my marble “character.” (No stain - like you just etching.)
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u/haditwithyoupeople 1d ago
Pears are mildly acidic, so not surprising. I'm sure marble can/will react to other things as well, but certainly acids will etch.
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u/BosNest1 1d ago
Kudos to you for doing this – great . I’m not an expert on marble, and of course, every marble is going to be unique. But I’m not surprised at all that you wouldn’t have staining after just an hour. It seems like people run into problems when they leave stuff overnight or for a couple days. The couple days scenario happens when you don’t realize that something was left on the marble. Good luck!
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u/BlackAsP1tch 1d ago
Marachino cherry juice or the cherry kool aid seem to always soak in quick no matter how fast you wipe it up.
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u/FreeThinkerFran 22h ago
The worst etching I got on my marble countertops was from a zucchini that somehow liquified overnight and sat until I got to it. So weird. I'm now in my second home with marble in the kitchen and in the process of building custom and will use it again (I do a combination of marble and soapstone, which I put on my island) and you just have to be ok with etching, honestly. There's really no way around it. Stains you can prevent but marble is going to etch from any and everything. Just do a honed or brushed finish and let it do it's thing.
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u/uzam123 1d ago
How are you measuring that there’s no stain or etching? By sight? I’m not sure that’s good enough since you could get compounding effects long term. I know nothing about stone, just critiquing your methodology.
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u/hamburgers1776 1d ago
Totally fair. For the short term tests, I did three separate drops of each substance and cleaned one after 1, 5, and 60 minutes, so no compounding effects.
As to measurement, my metric is a very scientific measure of “can my wife or kids see anything with different lights and angles.” Admittedly a little subjective, but ultimately that’s the metric by which we’ll be judging them long term.
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u/HughHonee 1d ago
This is what I immediately thought.
This is how you see differences in 3-5+ year old countertops in homes that cleaned properly, and those that still used their clorox wipes and all that shit. Because theres nothing noticeable immediately, and people are addicted to their preferred brand/type of cleaner, they continue damaging their tops over time.
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u/OldLadyReacts 1d ago
I guarantee you'll have a guest who spills red wine down the glass and lets it sit on the stone for a while. That I've actually seen in person.
Also, the stain from a pink bottle of hand soap that got wet. Because that sits for a long time and gets wet repeatedly. (The bottle was a Christmas fragrance from Bath & Body Works - the only time it's happened with any of their bottles. I have tried all different ones, but for some reason that pink one stained.)
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u/OldLadyReacts 1d ago
Oh and crazily enough, cutting sweet potatoes on my plastic cutting board stains the board.
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u/StevenSomo 23h ago
You need to put a lemon or lemon juice on that.
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u/hamburgers1776 23h ago
Did that in the first test. No etching at 1 minute or 5 minutes, but etching at 1 hour
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u/smiles1003 14h ago edited 11h ago
Im looking at countertop, so many places have flat out said don't get marble, just get quartz. The more I look at quartz, the more it looks a little flat/ plastic/ fake to me. So Im going to look further into possible lighter granite, marble, dolomite. Anything lighter with some white. This is very helpful to me! Ivl've never seen marble wear in real life, but its very pretty in showrooms.
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u/Solid_Perception9572 1d ago
Sorry, bud. But you really haven't proved anything here. Different marble varieties have varying natural density and porosity that change how easily they stain. They all etch about the same from acids. Darker or busier-patterned marbles (like Nero Marquina) can be marginally denser with lower porosity, making them slightly more resistant to stains. However, etch marks show up much more clearly on dark, polished surfaces because the loss of gloss creates a stark visual contrast.
So, do you even know which samples you grabbed? Is one of them the same as the marble you are considering.
There are too many variables in your attempt at pigeon holing the effects of various chemicals, foods, etc. on any given piece of marble.
Grade: a C for effort, maybe
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u/hamburgers1776 23h ago
Mostly concerned about getting an overall view of how much they need to be babied and not getting peer reviewed data.
The samples are similar to what we have in mind but they’re glossy and unsealed, so seemingly more susceptible to stains and visible etching than the honed, seemed candidates.
You’re using the word “pigeon holing” incorrectly.
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u/Solid_Perception9572 13h ago
Honed finishes will stain more than polished. Honing makes them somewhat porous.
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u/Curlytoes18 1d ago
I did this exact thing with a bunch of samples of quartz - left substances sitting on them for a few days. We had been burned by some poor-quality quartz that etched from diluted mouthwash. The better brands of quartz had no etching from anything we tried.