FAQ Friday: How Porous Is Granite? The Candle Wax Experiment.

I posted Part 1 of this story, you can read it here.
I got on sort of a tangent that day and didn't finish the post with the great story that I was planning on.
So today for FAQ Friday I'll finish up that question.

A lady I know, we'll call her Anne, was looking at countertops about five or six years ago. She wanted to do granite and ended up doing granite in her kitchen.
While she was looking though, she ran across a solid surface guy, he sells a product that rhymes with morian, so let's call him Mr Morian.  Mr Morian tried really hard to talk Anne out of granite that day.
He told her how porous granite is and that it breeds bacteria and sealing it is a pain...blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Mr Morian needs to come up with some new material.
But here's the kicker...he then told her how one time someone left a glass candle burning on their granite countertops overnight. Supposedly during the night the glass broke and the hot wax got all over her granite countertops. He said the granite was so porous that the wax went into the pores of the granite, all the way through the granite and spilled inside of their cupboards and ruined her pots and pans.  Let's get this straight, the wax didn't spill OVER the granite and drip down into the cabinet.  It went THROUGH the granite.  Supposedly.
This is the dumbest story I have ever heard. We had a good laugh over it though and it's been one of my great granite myth stories that I have told over and over. So I guess I have Mr Morian to thank for that.

Well, since I like to be a Myth Buster I decided to bust this myth.
I REALLY tried to give them every single benefit of the doubt in this.

First, I decided to use a granite tile instead of a slab. The tile is 3/8" thick instead of 3/4" or 1 1/4" that slabs generally come in.  So less granite for the wax to go through.

 

In this picture it looks like I'm scared that the wax is going to go through the tile since I put a towel under it.  That's not the case.  I put the towel under it because I was worried that the wax would spill over the sides when I poured it on. 

I chose Juparana St Cecilia granite for this experiment because it's a fairly pourus granite.  It's usually resined, but it's not as dense as the blacks.  Also, I wanted it to be a lighter color so if it stained we would be able to see it.  This piece of tile has NOT been resined or sealed with anything.

I bought a cheap red candle at Wal-Mart.  I thought the cheapness and the redness may help it stain the granite.  I really wanted it to stain!

I let the candle burn all day long so it was nice and hot.  I actually hate burning candles in my house, so this shows you the sacrifices I make in the name of science!  :)

I also warmed up the granite a little.  I didn't want the hot wax to get on the cold granite and have it set right up.  So I thought if the granite tile was warm it would help the wax get into the pores.

Then I left the wax there for over 24 hours. I could tell immediately what the outcome was, but to be fair to the experiment I just left it.
The next day I scraped the wax off with a razor blade and......
it didn't seep through at all! Are you shocked? I sure wasn't.
It actually was incredibly easy to get off. There was a little bit of a moist spot at first. It may have been from the oils or something in the wax, I'm not sure. Nonetheless it dried out and you couldn't see a bit of evidence that the wax was ever there.
I took the picture when the moist spot was still there.

Also ignore the three spot stains, they aren't from the candle. I'll tell you about them another day.

Here is a picture of the back of the tile. Just to show their was no wax through the granite.

FYI, that spot on the right is just sticky from an old sticker we had on the back.
So that's it.  Myth busted.

The Experiment of Etching Marble: Bathroom Edition

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.