Hi, Amylou,

Many people have and love honed finishes, and hopefully they'll chime in. I had a brief flirtation with Absolute Black honed. I love the matte look.

My contractor and fabricator advised that I bring a 12 x 12 sample of AB honed home to test. I poured some lemon juice on it, left for 15 minutes, and this is what I had. The mark is permanent.

{{!gwi}}

Ultimately I decided that for my household full of messy and not careful people, AB honed was not for me. My friend who has it in her master bathroom loves it and says it is not high maintenance for her, but she's an extremely clean and careful person. I think it depends on how careful you CAN be and how careful you want to HAVE to be, at least with AB honed.

Good luck!

Anita

I don,t know anything about honed black granite but we have the black galaxy in our kitchen and bathroom and I love it . It reflecs light like a mirror and you cann,t stain it. I made 9 batchs of blackberry and rassberry jam this year and I didn,t even have to bother with cleaning up the many spills until every thing was done and in jars.

We have black pearl with a leather finish, so not as smooth as a honed finish. I love our granite, but it shows a lot more than the cheapo, shiny, faux green marble laminate we had before. Any kind of spill, greasy spot, anything wet on the bottom of dirty dishes and glasses, so many things we never even saw before. Most of the time that stuff wipes clean with a damp paper towel, but occasionally it leaves a lingering mark that only granite cleaner will remove. I go back and forth between being annoyed by how stuff shows and being horrified at how filthy our old counters must have been in between complete wipe downs. I will say that dust doesn't show much between the matte finish and the varied pattern in the stone.

lmarletto,
I'm sad to hear the black pearl leather shows a lot. It is one of my top choices, and the price is reasonable. Did you seal it with an enhancer? I did it with my sample and it seems to help.

If you had to do it all over, would you put it in again?
Do you have any pictures?

Sorry for the hijack!

Yes, positano, I'd put the leathered black pearl in again. I love the look and the feel. The fabricator did put a 15yr sealer on it, but I don't think things showing is a sealer issue. Most everything wipes off with water. Worst case is I have to get my Method Daily Granite Cleaner out to completely eliminate whatever didn't come off with water. I think the issue is more that the dark, matte finish shows things that would be hidden by a lighter, busier or shinier finish. My neighbor has shiny black pearl and she says greasy doesn't show but dust does and the watermark type things look duller than her finish, so they show but in a different way than they do on mine. The shiny finish also shows more color variation than the matte, so that helps to hide crumb-type mess. I do wonder though if the dark, faux stone laminates have the same issue. That would tell you whether is was totally a surface thing or something more.

I haven't had good success photographing the kinds of marks I'm talking about, but here are a couple of general pictures of the stone.

Thanks for the pictures Lmarletto! It looks wonderful. I'm prepared for a little more maintenance. I'll let you know what we decide.