Hello 2littlefishies, Thats a great question-calcareous stones or any stone that has calcium in its makeup will always etch. It is just a chemical reaction.The calcium neutralizes the acid resulting in a dull spot. However if you compare etching on a highly polished surface to a very matte surface depending on the stone their will be a difference in the look. Also if you knew at what level your surface was finished or honed to or at. It would be possible to use a series of abrasives to remove the etch and match the finish of the existing surface. There are some companies or folks who will use acids to etch stone. In some cases they are going after a particular look.In other cases they are taking a shortcut to produce a honed finsh or reverse a slab that was delivered incorrectly(such as polished and should have been honed). Or a customer changed their mind after the polished slab was delivered and installed. First their are many different types of acids having various strength's and properties. From weaker citric acids up to hydrocholoric acids and beyond. I have seen these types of finishes (using acids)done and they never seem as uniform(blotchy) as when abrasives are used. Because stone will contain various mineral components and depending on the acid used some minerals may be adversely affected . I have seen veins become pitted and or eroded though the use of acids. Acids seem to leave the surface rough and the pores open attracting and holding soils. An example of this would be an etch on your white or light marble countertop or around a commode will if not refinished will turn dark or black overtime as it holds soils. Using progressive grits of diamond abrasives and finishing with an aluminum oxide wet slurry produces one of the most uniform matte finishes I have seen. While honing to a matte finish may make the etching less pronounced it can make the surface more susceptible to staining agents. Using the proper impregnating sealers applied correctly and maintaining with ph neutral no rinse cleaners will extend the life of the sealers and protect the suface from staining. Impregnating sealers will do nothing to protect the surface from etching however. There are some new products on the market to protect marble from etching and staining. They are coatings something I have never felt was appropriate for stone surfaces. In the past these coatings made the stone look like plastic and phony. Have a look at clearstoneusa and drytreat. We all know dry treat as they have been making stone sealers for a long time. They now have a product called vitremela for marble.Both these products are quite different. Because they are new there are pro and cons to each. These type of coatings may not be for everyone. At this time dry treat offers no warranty on their product as it has a life of under 5 years. Clearstone offers a warranty with their product. Both products can be polished or honed. I hope my answer wasnt too long.

Mamabear, I'll gladly be your enabler. I fell in love with Super White here on GW. When we went to look at slabs at the fabricator our builder used, I didn't hold out much hope that I would find any slabs so never mentioned Super White to DH. As we were walking through the yard, DH was ahead of me. I found him stopped in front of a lot of SW. I couldn't have asked for a better reaction from him. We tagged 3 slabs and took loads of pictures. I committed the GW sin of not obtaining a sample so no testing was done. I was just excited to have found this amazing stone and that DH was totally on board with it. Much drama occured after templating that I won't go into, but ultimately, we ended up with gorgeous countertops in our kitchen, master bath and half bath. We had the fabricator apply a sealer that supposedly would protect it for 10 years. One year after moving into our new home, I have experienced no staining or etching. I'm not an obsessive housekeeper, nor is DH who is home during the day while I work. I do have some small pieces now that I could test, but I've chosen not to. Don't want to jinx my good fortune. Good luck with your decision. I'm certainly happy with mine.

Hi all, looking for some advise. We recently had our kitchen redone and it looks beautiful. We went with what the stoneyard called calacatta ("quartzite")... but it seems a lot of this stone is marketed under super white. I know there is a lot of discussion on this forum about what this stone actually is. Aside from all of the issues, it is truly beautiful and i will add pictures later. Here is my issue- i had a marble slab with rubber feet on the counter, and from moving it, the rubber feet left drag marks on the countertop which do not come out WITH ANYTHING. So thats issue one, why rubber feet marked my super shiny top. I dont think my fabricator knows much about this stone, because he came back to seal after the backsplash work was done and then said sealing for this stone wasnt necessary. But he did use a tanez color enhancer sealer on one portion of the counter that was looking dullish (different areas of the stone have different "shine" levels, i think this is just inherent in this particular slab). Anyway, this sealer didnt do antything to affect color on this portion of the stone. However, when used on a small portion of the very highly polished island, it left an etch mark. It didnt change the color, but when directional light hits it, you see that "shadow" which we could not remove even right after! So issue number two, why the heck did sealer seemingly etch my top? Or is it because he rubbed it into that particular spot? Or is it because it was only in one apot, and aince it ia a color enhancer as well, it should have been applied to the entire piece to avoid that blotch. Issue three is that the surface althought incredibly shiny, with directional light looks like it has greasy smudges or fingerprints all over it. Again, these dont rub out. Issue four, i did the water drop test and it did darken in one spot after a few minutes but then evaporated dry. In another spot- a less shiny area which looks almost honed, it left a slight mark. Oh and then he said the craziest thing- dont clean this with anything except windex (BLASPHEMY!!) OR some soft scrub or barkeepers. And then, im not sure, to cover his ass, he said this is partly a mandmade stone made from fragments, compressed, and glued together under pressure, which ive never heard of. I think pictures will help and ill add tomm as it is 1 am and this is keeping me up. Im sitting there like... what the heck, and obviously looking for a way to clean this up that does not involve them, they dont seem like he brightest. Any of you super white / calacatta quartzite owners have these issues? How do you clean your counters? Should i get a professional restoring sealing company who specializes in that to come look at it and see what can be done? Im scared to use my kitchen now!!Any suggestions would be truly helpful!!! Or if there are any professionals that can steer me in the right direction i would highly appreciate it!!!

Thank you. Yes, definitely going with white. We have to make wall color choice prior to closing, so going with their white which is one shade of white I don't care for. Will be bringing in backsplash later. Just not sure what would go well with super white stone, which I love.