I'm laughing about the head bonking warning. I hope Fred is laughing with me. Remember when we had the threads about the dangers of granite? There were many jokes about head bonking!

Probably so, laxsupermom. Because he most certainly doesn't have any earned credibility with this group, nor is he likely to develop any with those kind of posts.

If anyone was ever to take a running fall and strike their head on the square soapstone edge, a disastrous injury would be far more likely than with a composite or metal counter. How do you put a price on a safety issue like that?

Good thing we have so many helmets in this house. Ha Ha.

And now we know where fredl is coming from. Must not have had helmets at his house. ;-P

fredl, don't worry about death from head-bonking (wait I thought soapstone was soft!) Surely, all the germs infesting the nooks and crevices in our kitchens will kill us first!

Hey, there.

I can't answer what soapstone is, but I can tell you that I don't oil mine and it looks gorgeous. We don't get water spots, hideous marks, etc. It just looks soft and so warm.

I love it for the matte look and for its ability to resist stains. I have a busy family with 3 kids and I can't stand a high maintenance countertop material.

Anita

To be fair, all the labs I've ever worked in had synthetic countertops. I don't think soapstone has been used in new lab construction in years.

---"And now we know where fredl is coming from. Must not have had helmets at his house."

Just the facts, Ma'am. No reason to get ugly about it. I'm coming from hundreds of industrial and residential renovation projects. You are coming from a few months of self-contradictory experience. Yes?

You are financially and emotionally invested in soapstone. I get that. That surely does not mean that others need to make uninformed decisions. We are all here to learn. Right?

And btw, I've seen 2 hard surface, head strike injuries. In one case, the person was killed instantly from a walking trip. The other was a teenager running. He will be mentally handicapped for his entire life. So in my world, safety issues trump decor everyday. Even if that means nothing to you, Ma'am.

Hey lady! You are an emotional chick! Emotionally attached to your stone! Sheesh. Womenfolk.

(mental note: all surfaces in home to be made soft. Soft yet unemotional.)

fori! You just made me snort soy milk through my nose! Bad!

I just have to say that I've never oiled my soapstone and I don't get water marks or any other stains. Anything that is on the stone I just wipe off with a damp sponge or, if it is oily, with some kind of surface cleaner. And I've spilled (and not immediately cleaned up) everything from red wine to lemon juice with nary a stain in sight.

And I'm no more worried about head injuries with my soapstone counters than I was with my old metal-edged laminate counters.

OMG! I am going to seal off my kitchen so the kids can't get in and injure themselves.

I am also going to oil more aggressively so that the stains that DON"T EXIST will not start to appear.

I'm guessing Fred sells quartz countertops. It's interesting that he joined today. Maybe I'll see him on the Rose Forums.

You guys are the best. I love GW! Just had a great after dinner laugh as I look at my beautiful gorgeous non porous soapstone.

Fred, rock on - we're ready for you.

Eliz

This looks like a meeting of the Mutual Defense Society of Soapstone Counter Owners. Where is all this hostility coming from, I wonder?

And the group denial--no scratches, no stains, no bumps, no broken china. Where's the fun here? Honestly Eliz, I wasn't ready for the ad hominem. But that's just me.

Yet somehow this miracle product can never be found in restaurants, labs (built within the last 50 years), or any other commercial foodservice applications where professional designers are paid to make fully informed choices. The truth is, health inspectors would never allow soapstone counters in a commercial kitchen, and the owners would never accept the injury liability. Although we have different standards for residential kitchens, we can learn from the professionals.

This is a great country where we can all spend our money and get what we want. I'm not here to promote anything, or outlaw your antique kitchens. Most people want safe, healthy, low-maintenance, durable, cleansible, economical countertops. OTOH, it's ok that a few people want something else. We just don't want to encourage that on a societal level.

So relax. Don't take my comments personally. Human beings are remarkably adaptable, and all you MDSSCO'ers probably be fine. No really.

Cordially, Fred

Love you, fori. DH keeps asking why I'm laughing so hard I'm actually snorting.

maureeninmd, he he. I can't believe I went to all the trouble of putting my knives out of reach in a wall pullout, when I covered the lower portion of my kitchen with death-inducing surfaces. heh heh.

fredl, I apologize if I was getting ugly. I put the emoticon on the end so everyone would know that was said tongue in cheek.

Love you, fori. DH keeps asking why I'm laughing so hard I'm actually snorting.

maureeninmd, he he. I can't believe I went to all the trouble of putting my knives out of reach in a wall pullout, when I covered the lower portion of my kitchen with death-inducing surfaces. heh heh.

fredl, I apologize if I was getting ugly. I put the emoticon on the end so everyone would know that was said tongue in cheek.

I read on another thread today about a chemist who has become a renovator, with clients who complain that their granite is cold only to find out that it's the cold air leaking down from the attic and not the granite per se. Talk about dense.

In a store, I was told slate and soapstone were in the same family, and they were both dense and non-porous. Fred you've got competition.

fredl, I don't have soapstone so I have no emotional or financial investment in it. However, granite (which I also don't have in my kitchen) is harder than soapstone and more likely to crack a skull and is used in many, many restaurants. My countertop guy just finished a big job for a local restaurant.

Our kitchens are not labs and they're not commercial kitchens. Not many people want their kitchens to be sheathed in stainless steel floor to ceiling, no matter how cleanable or bleachable it is. We don't install drains in the middle of our kitchen floors so that we can hose the whole thing down. We don't bar our dogs, cats, and kids from our kitchens because they're not sterile.

I guess it might never occur to you that people are reacting negatively to you, not because they have an emotional/financial/blah blah investment in soapstone but because your posts have a distinctly condescending tone while being filled with alarmist statements and misinformation?

By the way, I plan to encourage people throughout society to use marble in their kitchens which is high-maintenance, soft enough to scratch but hard enough to crack skulls, often non-economical and never seen in commercial kitchens or labs. Stop me if you can!

Erika

---"Fred you've got competition."

No, not even before I retired.

If you like soapstone, you will LOVE slate. They are both metamorphic stone, soft enough to hand carve, acid etch-able, and porous to oil. But slate comes from clay, and soapstone comes from talc. Both mush, but 2 different chemical families.

I had no idea there was so much dis-info being disseminated about this product.

Appreciatively, Fred

''We just don't want to encourage that on a societal level''

Who is 'we'. I see no company here.

Ahhh, Fori, thanks for that great belly-laugh. Har!

Fredl, I have no horse in this race (my counters are not soapstone nor any commercial surface, but are self-fabricated of an entirely different material) -- but you aren't making much sense to me. Soapstone is somehow so much softer than other surfaces that it practically crumbles under use, yet it's simultaneously so much harder than other surfaces that it represents an extra insurance risk? Huh?

If you're looking for "safe, healthy, low-maintenance, durable, cleansible, economical", you've ruled out just about any material ever used for fabricated countertops.

(With "safe" I include "safe for our environment", which rules out quartz with its resins and fillers, and solid surfaces with their various nasties. Since you bring up the "societal level", and are posting on the GardenWeb, I assume that the global damage we are wreaking with the commercial production of these consumer goods is of great concern to you as well.)

To fulfil just about all of those criteria except "economical", you can choose a natural material like metal or stone, and stone is likely less environmentally damaging in its fabrication than the milling of metals.

Eliza 824, please consider that the almost all the posters commenting positively on soapstone have been on this forum for months, if not years. The naysayer joined today, doesn't have soapstone, but has plenty of misinformation. Do a search using the function at the bottom of the main page and you'll find plenty of correct information regarding soapstone. Or do a google search.

Once again, here's the correct information for the original poster's benefit:

Soapstone is a naturally quarried stone that is chemically inert and non-porous. Oiled or un-oiled, it does not stain, period. It makes a functional and attractive countertop. It is priced about the same as high-end granite, yet unlike granite it is timeless--thus its enduring popularity with owners of historic homes. And it does not go out of its way to break dishes! (ROF, LOL)

GWers have many years of accumulated experience with this material. Those of us who chose soapstone more recently did our own due diligence before plunking down the big bucks. You should do the same, and of course take certain (self-serving?) opinions with several grains of salt.

I can't wait to order my soapstone counters!!!!!

Whew!!! My goodness, I must say I was not expecting such a response to my inquiry about soapstone. Let's just say I've learned a LOT (ROFL!)-- I've been telling my husband, every time I walk by my computer and look at my inbox, "Look, here's another 'soapstone' post!" I certainly didn't mean to open up such a can of worms, but I do appreciate all of the persistence that you soapstone-lovin'-ladies have! I have this hysterical visual of "Fred" up against a coalition of ladies defending their kitchens with t-shirts that say "I LOVE MY SOAPSTONE!"

You guys are a hoot!!!

Thanks so much to all of you-- I appreciate the response.

Fredl, the initial demonstration of hostility came from you. You registered today and began posting in a community I presume you know little about. Yet you immediately started making numerous misleading statements about a natural stone material that a good deal of people here know quite a bit about. That's because they live with it daily in their kitchens. And because many have been doing so for years, this forum has become a place where these same folk have been helping to undo a whole lot of confusion, misleading claims and outright lies that various dealers in materials other than soapstone have been spreading about the product. Now here you are on your first post in the community, spreading those same untruths. Not a particularly good start!

Worse, when challenged as to your misleading and/or false statements, you don't defend your position with actual facts (because you can't. Instead, you attempt to discredit the challengers. So, for example, when your claim that soapstone is porous gets totally blown out of the water, you try argument diversion by insult: soapstone owners who live with the material in their kitchens day in and day out are only saying what they are saying because they are "financially and emotionally invested." However you, OTOH, should be believed because you are a "chemist . . . coming from hundreds of industrial and renovation projects." Well, suppose I tell you that I am a doctor coming from thousands of lab tests of headstrike injuries caused by collisions with kitchen countertops and that the results of those tests prove that soapstone is no more of a potentially dangerous head bonker than any other natural stone one can find in a kitchen. Are you go gonna go for that? (If so, then let me also tell you that I live in Brooklynm N.Y. and I've got a really great bridge I've been trying to unload for a really cheap price. Are you interested?)

You also ramped up the hostility when you then resorted to straw man style of argumentation. Thus, you slapped a sarcastic group label on those who have been sharing their actual experiences with soapstone which differ with your unsupported statements. You then proceeded to claim there has been group denial of scratches, bumps and broken china. Sorry, but no one here has denied that soapstone scratches. And no one has mentioned bumping except you. (And, btw, what do you mean by that? Soapstone bumps? Gee, my soapstone has never bumped me. You think I should return it?). And certainly no one has denied that if you drop china on a soapstone countertop,it might break. About the only group denial I'm seeing is that of the claim that soapstone stains. And that's because everyone other than you, the chemist, is clear that soapstone is a non porous surface!

If there is anything you have said that I can agree with, it's this: "We're all here to learn." So true!

So here's a lesson for you to learn: As a newbie to this community, try a bit of lurking for a while to get a sense of what's going on here before jumping in and throwing punches. Do a little research of the topics and threads that interest you and get a feel for who is here and what is the shared culture and approach to information sharing. If anything, I think you will find that this is not a typical internet chat site that is characterized by snarky comments, nasty personal attacks and unchecked arrogance. And, indeed, when that kind of socially retarded communication is introduced on these pages, the community will almost always collectively repel and disregard it. After all, we've got enough stress going on with our kitchen renos than to be wilfully introducing it to a forum that is here to help us! None of what I've just said means that there are not serious differences of opinion here. By all means there are -- and it rises to the surface on just about every topic. However, by and large, the way we have come to respect each other and share those differing opinions and viewpoints contrasts sharply with the approach you have taken with your initial postings. If you are seriously interested in joining this forum and "learning" some things, try chewing on that for a bit.

eliza (and all) Fredl is a stainless steel guy:

***********************************
"Posted by fredl (My Page) on Mon, Apr 6, 09 at 17:43

"We just installed a huge 18 gage German-made ss sink (30 inch + 15 inch drainboard) under a 10 foot long 12 gage ss countertop."

"The result is a seamless assembly where germs have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The counter practically cleans itself, and sanitizes with a quick wipe of dilute bleach.

And btw, rather than thin, 12 gage stainless will stop bullets.

Regards, Fred"
***********************************************

It's very easy to spot that he's proud of his choice of stainless steel, and wants to convince the world to follow his brilliant choice. How about I say that chards of metal will flick off your stainless steel counters and get in your food and cut your mouth apart?? You would defend that as completely false I'm sure. What you've stated about soapstone is ridiculous and false and we're just letting you know. (and, please, I don't want to debate this because I don't think it's fair to take over this thread with this crap)

[However, I'd love to know where you live that people are being thrown into their countertops and receiving life altering "head strikes" and dodging bullets in their kitchens???]

---"please consider that the almost all the posters commenting positively on soapstone have been on this forum for months, if not years. The naysayer joined today,..."

Now now, Chacha. That is a really mean-spirited ad hominem attack. First of all, I am never a naysayer. Soapstone is stuff, and like every kind of stuff, it has a peculiar set of properties. Why get nasty and personal about it? I readily acknowledge the its good properties, and if I was building a welding station, I was definitely consider a soapstone work surface. Does that make you happy?

You also invoke the really creepy Fallacy of Consensus. Have you not learned that history is full of monsters who could not tolerate dissent? What good would a discussion of kitchen stuff be, if you were allowed to intimidate everyone who had any negative information to share? We call that censorship, and you picked the wrong guy to try it on.

Please think hard about your destructive comments before you dig yourself deeper in the hole. I'm just not worth it.

Hoping we have communicated, Fred

--- "Fredl, the initial demonstration of hostility came from you."

No Martha, that is just wrong. You cannot cite such a post from me. Do you have the honesty to apologize for that transparently false accusation?

The rest of your post is filled with too many other false statements to bother with. Soapstone is far more likely to cause injuries because it is generally delivered with far sharper edges than granite. There's your real straw man. Why do you waste your time with such nonsense?

Puzzled, Fred

Good question, Fred. Why do I waste my time with your nonsense??? Not.

Well, the guy at the marble yard showed by demonstration how porous the marble was by using...wait for it...water. He showed how some granites were equally porous, and some weren't. And he showed how water beaded up and ran off of the soapstone.

Scientific method, you know?

He also, with a geat deal of banging with his full back strength, was able, with another guy's help, to break off a corner for me to take home and test. Now this is the very very hard (for soapstone) soapstone. He showed me stones (marble and soapstone, and even one or two which are classified as granites) that were easily scratched with a nail. By scratching them with a nail. The hard one didn't scratch with a nail (I tried really hard). In fact, while it did ding where he hammered the heck out of it, even the dings are pretty puny. Ergo, some soapstone is very soft and can be carved with handtools, or nails. Some soapstone is pretty darned tough.

Experimentation yields demonstrable, replicable results.

I took the corner home and tested it with prepared mustard and straight vinegar, with time lapse. No etching. I tested it with butter and oil, also over time. No absorption. It took cleaning to remove the sheen that the butter left (in those microgroove things), but just a paper towel and a little dishsoap did it. Butter left overnight on my cousin's granite leaves a dark spot that doesn't come out without a poultice. Some granites are porous. This soapstone is not.

Soapstone is generally delivered with the exact same eased edge I have on my granite and serpentine sinktops. Stone is stone. It's not a good thing to bonk one's head on. Headbonking is bad. Stone is good.

Isn't science great?

---"fredl,..."

Friends call me Fred. I append the screen name with the initial L as a courtesy to other Freds who may post on any particular forum.

---"I don't have soapstone so I have no emotional or financial investment in it."

Neither do I. That's a good place to start a civil discussion, I think.

---"However, granite ... is harder than soapstone and more likely to crack a skull ...

I was attempting to make the point that the marginal difference in hardness is not significant. Traditionally, soapstone is milled with sharp, square corners on the front edge. Due to industrial evolution, granite is delivered with various rounded corners and even a full bullnose on the front edge. It is the geometric distinction of the traditional sharp edge that makes soapstone more dangerous. Perhaps the softness of the stone makes rounder edges on soapstone impractical to cut. But I doubt it. People who want soapstone want a pre-industrial, coarser appearance to the material. Although we have a consensus here that kitchen safety is a comical issue, I still take it seriously.

---"[Granite] is used in many, many restaurants."

Comparing the stainless steel surface area in commercial kitchens to granite surface area, we would see a ratio of 100,000 to 1. That is a big enough difference to declare that professional kitchen managers overwhelmingly reject stone alternatives for their work surfaces.

---"Our kitchens are not labs and they're not commercial kitchens."

You are pressing a false dichotomy. We can incorporate many practical elements commonly found in commercial workplaces, into a beautiful residential kitchen. I think it is wise to do that. Who needs a kitchen that is slower to cook and harder to clean? Not me.

---"Not many people want their kitchens to be sheathed in stainless steel floor to ceiling,..."

I certainly would not want that for myself.

---"... no matter how cleanable or bleachable it is.

OTOH, if someone asked me to design and build a kitchen for someone who required higher levels of sanitation, I would not doubt their needs or hesitate to build it. You see in America, we should all get what we need.

---"We don't install drains in the middle of our kitchen floors so that we can hose the whole thing down."

Honestly, if I had to do it all over, I would strongly consider building a drain into my tiled kitchen floor. ((Let's just keep that between us.)) What we really don't do is impose our capricious esthetic standards on others.

---"We don't bar our dogs, cats, and kids from our kitchens because they're not sterile."

I really don't understand your point here, or how it could possibly apply to my comments. It is easy to see however, that families with high traffic and pets would benefit most from extra attention to kitchen cleansibility details. Yes?

---"I guess it might never occur to you that people are reacting negatively to you ... because your posts have a distinctly condescending tone while being filled with alarmist statements and misinformation?"

Erika, I've posted online for 14 years in dozens of forums. I learned that people who agree with me think I'm amusing and informative. People who disagree with me think I am hateful/dishonest/blah blah and should be censored. That's just the way it is. I will be me, and everyone else has the right to promote their own agenda.

---"..., I plan to encourage people throughout society to use marble in their kitchens [because it] is high-maintenance, soft enough to scratch but hard enough to crack skulls, often non-economical ...

Good for you. If that makes you happy, I wish you every success.

---"Stop me if you can!"

Where's the fun in that?!? However, if someone were to sue you, I could gleefully serve as a devastatingly effective expert witness to condemn your reckless advice. LOL

i think a stainless sink looks good in a stainless countertop, welded together.

But this thread is about a stone. Not porous, impervious, hard enough to be a good choice among stone counter choices. And delivered with the edging you choose, if you so choose, and assuming you are aware that you have that option in the first place.

we can start a new thread about a ten or twenty subjects mentioned in the previous 45 posts. It is a bit disrespectful to the OP and to any forum to take over a newbie's innocent question and turn it into a free ranging debate.

any newbie can start ten or twenty new threads about subjects and questions that may be worth discussing, and leave this thread alone.
e.g.
germs and cleansibility
self-censorship
groupthink
alternatives to stone tops
heating pads in stone counters
porosity of Stone X : myth, reality or somewhere in between?
why all steel is good
why all steel is what you see inside restaurants, in the back
styles: snarky vs sincere vs provocative
floor drains: hidden or in full view?
water stains on Stone X
discoloration on Stone X from dragging a pan over it
rust on Stainless steel from dragging a pan over it
slate
variations (hardness, porosity) of types of different stones
does oiling soapstone mean it's porous?

HTH

I think what this thread needs is a picture. Worth a 1000 words! Love my gorgeous soapstone!!
{{gwi:1722644}}

100% agree with you, marita! A picture is worth 1000 words. Yours is gorgeous!

This is my Black Venata. It's one of the softer varieties.

Truth be told I thought this was quite informative. I hope the OP found it useful.

Hahaha!

This is a prank

or dare

or a twisted challenge

to see how many long-time, knowledgeable, helpful, generous GW KF members to respond
(--"Stop me if you can!" Where's the fun in that?!?)

to the ridiculous and mean-spirited tripe
(''I'm not here to promote anything, or outlaw your antique kitchens. Most people want safe, healthy, low-maintenance, durable, cleansible, economical countertops. OTOH, it's ok that a few people want something else. We just don't want to encourage that on a societal level.)

The best way to get Fredl (I am not your friend) to go away is to just ignore him. OK do I get the prize now?

fredl, I'm not your friend, so I'll stick with your username. I have seen many many pictures of soapstone kitchens posted on this forum. I have not once seen one with sharp edges like you describe. Radius, eased, pencil edges -- yes. Sharp, razor-like, death-inducing edges -- no. I see now that your safety concern is with some edge treatment that nobody even uses anymore. That's amusing.

When I said granite was used in restaurants, I meant on the tables, bars, etc not in the kitchen itself.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but people are not reacting negatively to you because you have a different opinion from them. We get opposing viewpoints on this forum all the time and people are able to disagree without rancor. Rather, people are reacting negatively to you because you project an obvious attitude of smugness, superiority and condescension. You may think you're superior because you care less about the appearance of your kitchen and more about its sterility. But you're not superior, you're just different.

So I managed to really bonk my head on my microwave shelf - now that darn thing IS a safety hazard!

I'd be more worried about slippery floors than countertop materials, given that I've known of two serious (and in one case, fatal) involving slips outside of the home. Sigh.

Okay, questions about soapstone - would anyone consider it for an outdoor kitchen? Also, experience with it as a bathroom vanity top?

Oh my this was interesting.
fredl, softer I agree completely. But your damage is my patina. You probably wouldn't like my pine floors either.
I do have it in my mbath and it is fine.

Chloe -- my school has an old native Maine soapstone wash sink in one of the back courtyards, where it has been exposed to the elements for over 120 years and is still going strong (it's the carved-from-one-piece kind). I think it's absolutely gorgeous. I don't see why you couldn't use it for an outdoors kitchen if you wanted to.

Me, I'm considering installing soapstone in conjunction with my copper counters one day when I can afford it -- the contrast in color and texture would be stunning.

Just have to chime in with my soapstone $.02 :-)

I grew up in an old house with @ 100 year old black soapstone 'set tubs' (big sinks) in the cellar. They were originally used for canning vegetables and washing clothes by hand until washing machines came into vogue. When my parents bought the house back in the early 60s, the washing machine hose drained right into one of the huge sinks... meaning, these sinks have seen harsh laundry detergents, bleach, chemicals and lots of abuse in their lifetime as set tubs. We washed our pets, cleaned fish and abused the heck out of them during our tenure.

The sinks were perfect when the house was sold in 1995 --- black with natural age, not worn to a noticeable degree and boy, do I wish we took them with us!

Eliza 824, you did not open the can of worms. There is plenty of good info within this thread, but there are other threads on the forum with a no passive aggression, and that are much more to the point on your original question. Sorry your thread got hijacked.

I actually would love a metal kitchen with a drain on the floor. But I can't have it so I'll stick with (gasp!) stainless steel counters (which are recyclable and probably recycled and probably at least as green as removing hillsides for quarrying stone).

But since we're filling poor Eliza's inbox, let me get on topic.

Is soapstone as good as the traditional marble for candymaking and baking? I was planning on marble for my baking center but the bulletproofosity of soapstone is appealing to my low-maintenance sensibilities. And it is certainly beautiful!

More pictures!

Fori, do a search for trailrunner's kitchen. She's a big baker and uses her soapstone extensively for rolling out dough, etc. She doesn't oil it. You will also see some gorgeous pix of her finished baked goods - they all look mouth-watering!

Eliz

Back to Eliza's, OP's, question:

Granite is crystalline (mostly) and is formed from magma (volcanic belches). Feldspar, if I'm not mistaken. Some kinds are denser than others depending on the exact composition, etc. It is generally brittle, and can crack under stress, but that stress has to be pretty extreme. Don't put a burning pot down on a cold granite counter. It's very hard.

Marble is metamorphic. Limestone. It's a "soft" stone, and generally porous. It's not hard to scratch it, but it's a lot harder than soft (carving) soapstone. It is easily etched by acids like lemon juice and vinegar. Honed marble doesn't show etching very much. Polished marble will develop a patina if allowed to age which is equivalent to honed.

Soapstone is mostly talc and steatite. It's called that because when polished it has a smooth, soapy feeling texture. As I said before, it can be very soft or quite hard, reputedly from different spots in the same quarry. It can take thermal shocks, and is not porous. It's formed where tectonic plates squeeze together.

Solid surfaces like Silstone, "quartz", are made from crystaline stone dust and resin. They're very durable and hard.

The ones called "solid surface" (Corian?) are more like thick Formica. That is, plastic. They're also durable, but can scorch and aren't that hard to scratch.

Soapstone doesn't require a plywood backing and doesn't have that slick, polished surface that granite and quartz have.

Fori, you can use any cool flat surface for baking. Marble is traditional because it was available. A lot of traditional bakers oil or wet their marble so that it won't suck moisture out of the dough. Any of these surfaces, except perhaps the plastic, should work equally well with the cool hardness thing.

Eliza, cost comparison is much harder to say. It really depends on the slabs, the fabricators, the yard, the part of the country, the installation issues, etc., etc. It's best to do your own shopping.

Thanks, plllg, that was very helpful!!!!!

Fredl, you're going to have a reputation around here as a troll. I hope you don't plan to ask any legitimate questions after your mis-informed attack on soapstone.

I've had my soapstone installed for over a year. I clean them with a squirt bottle full of water and a tsp of soap. Squirt, squirt, wipe, beautiful. No stains AT ALL. I also oiled them last Fall for a different look. I enjoyed it for a few months, then washed it all off and went au naturel again. I am not a big baker, but this past Valentines day I had to make heart-shaped sugar cookies for my daughter's class party. I (used to) HATE to roll out pastry, it sticks and makes a mess all over. But not on my soapstone! The dough stayed cool and rolled out wonderfully.

Of course, I could scratch it with a paperclip, but I can also scratch corian, granite, formica, and quartz with a paperclip.

It has been a dream countertop surface.

BTW, here's my oil-less soapstone, nine months of age. Cut fabricated and honed in my back yard.

Casey

Marita, your ss is absolutely breathtaking it is so gorgeous!! I must have looked at it for 5 minutes before I told my DH he had to look at the most beautiful countertop I have have seen.

Marthavila, thank you for being so eloquent in your reply to he who shall not be named.

The best way to handle a bully is to ignore them.

Can we have more of those lovely photos now please?

Not a soapstone owner or even a soapstone wannabe though I do admire the look. However it occurs to me that if I crashed my head into my old formica countertop, I could do some serious damage to myself.

Unless they make NERF countertops, I can't imagine any countertop that wouldn't be potentially "dangerous" if I slammed my head against it!

Fred makes a convincing argument for padded wall kitchens....