Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Holiday Re-Runs: The Experiment of Etching Marble: Bathroom Edition

Happy Holidays!
This week I'm stepping away from the blog and I'm posting re-runs of our most popular posts from 2011.  
Today's article was originally posted on 4/19/11. We all know that it takes a certain type of person to use marble in their kitchen, but people ask if it's smart to do marble in their baths as well.  I'd recommend it!  See the results below.
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Last year I did my own experiment to show how marble etches in the kitchen.  You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

When I was doing this first experiment, after I had all the kitchen ingredients on the marble my husband asked me why I hadn't put any bathroom items on the marble.  Honestly, I hadn't even thought about it.  Marble is much less likely to etch in a bathroom because usually you don't have too many acids in there. 
I say this, but I must mention that the limestone in my own Powder Bath etched.  Someone had dripped a couple of globs of Bath & Body Works liquid soap on my Seagrass Limestone countertop and I didn't notice it until the next day.  When I wiped it up there were a couple of etched spots on the countertop.  So, while we aren't cutting lemons in the Powder Bath there are other items that are in our bathrooms that will etch the calcium based stones.
I put together a whole new test using bathroom stuff.  I decided to conduct this experiment on two different marbles, Carrara and Emperador Dark.  I thought it might be helpful to see the difference between a light and dark marble.
Here is a list of the items I put on the marble pieces...
  • Face wash
  • Hairspray
  • Nail Polish Remover
  • Lotion/ Body Cream
  • Perfume
  • After Shave Lotion
  • Nail Polish (red!)
  • Toothpaste
  • Shaving Cream
  • Liquid Hand Soap
I taped off sections on each marble piece and dabbed the items on.  I then let them sit for about 24 hours.  Obviously 24 hours is longer than most people would let red nail polish sit on their countertops, but I'm going for a worst case scenario here.



The next day when everything had dried up it was kind of a pain to get off.  I had to use a razor blade for a lot of it.
The results were a bit surprising to me.   

Carrara marble
Etched
Stained


Face Wash
No
Yes
Hair Spray
No
No
Nail Polish Remover
Yes
No
Lotion/ Body Cream
No
No
Perfume
No
No
After Shave Lotion
Yes
Yes
Nail Polish
No
Yes, but not as bad as you’d think!  J
Toothpaste
No
Slight Stain
Shaving Cream
No
No
Liquid Hand Soap
Yes
Yes



Emperador Dark marble
Etched
Stained


Face Wash
No
No
Hair Spray
No
No
Nail Polish Remover
No
No
Lotion/ Body Cream
No
No
Perfume
No
No
After Shave Lotion
Yes
Yes
Nail Polish
No
No!
Toothpaste
No
No
Shaving Cream
No
No
Liquid Hand Soap
Yes
Yes

My husband just uses an After Shave Lotion, not the liquid stuff.  It's probably the liquid After Shave that I personally have had the most issues with etching with homeowner's in the past. 
All in all I was surprised with how few of the products actually etched or stained the stones.  I was quite impressed that the red nail polish didn't even stain the Emperador Dark and barely stained the Carrara!


Also keep in mind that different brands of face wash, toothpastes, etc may affect your stone differently.  The type of marble will make a difference as well.  

4 comments:

Lyndsay said...

Thanks for posting this. I want to use Crema Marfil in my bath and now I am not so scared!

Kelly said...

My soap actually etched my Carrara marble, but it doesn't bother me. Nothing else has etched it though. I love my bathroom marble, I wouldn't change it!

Unknown said...

nice post. Now you can use this online business services to promote natural stones import & export business.

Brie said...

In our granite and marble showroom, we warn people all the time about marble's sensitivities. What a good experiment to set up!

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