I thought I wanted polished, but both my fabricator and the helpful folks here advised me to get honed. The polished is more prone to etching. I wound up getting honed Carrara, and we love it so far.

What do you mean when you say etching? What does it look like and how do you prevent it?

I selected honed carrara marble for my main/guest bathroom vanity top. I love it and I intend to use honed marble for my master bathroom when I get to remodeling it.

Personally, though I like both polished and honed marble, I prefer the honed look. As porkandham said, polished is either more prone to etching or shows etching more than honed.

If you do a search in the kitchen forum (and probably here in bath too) on marble and etching, you will find a ton of results. Basically, marble (and limestone and travertine) are calcium-based stones. Anything acidic (and I believe anything basic as well? - basically anything not pH neutral) causes a chemical reaction in the stone that we know of as etching. The only way to prevent it is to avoid contact with anything non-pH neutral. I would recommend testing all of your typically-used bathroom products on a marble sample so that you can see what etching looks like. You should of course also seal the marble to prevent staining, but sealing cannot prevent etching.

Here and here and here are some pages from Granite Gurus discussing etching and staining on marble. I would also recommend doing a search in the kitchens and baths forums on marble and etching. A lot of people have asked questions about this and a lot of people with experience have answered.

To add further info, etching appears as less-shiny (even on honed materials) or dirty spots, splotches or even outlines (from the bottoms of objects that might have some of the "offending" liquid underneath).