Care and Maintenance Honed, Concrete and Rough surfaces may require additional daily and weekly care. Due to the nature of the surface design, it is recommended that common household spills like liquid droplets and rings are dried immediately. As with any matte product, owners of Concrete, Honed and Rough finishes may experience seeing an increase in smudges from everyday living. Weekly, the surface should be cleaned with Soft Scrub Liquid Gel with Bleach and thoroughly dried. We encourage you to order a sample of our products that you are considering. When you receive your sample, try treating it to a few different scenarios that you may face in your kitchen; spill something on it, touch it with greasy fingers, clean it. This will help you understand how the surface responds to your daily life and how comfortable you feel with it. Complete Caesarstone Surface Care and Maintenance is available here and to view our Collections and order a sample, please visit our Collections page. https://www.caesarstoneus.com/customer-care/finishes/ 

Another vote for quartzite here. Where we live, quartzite and marble are roughly the same price (marble being slightly more expensive). We lived with marble before and while I loved the look, I did not love the performance- the etching staining, chipping... we are very heavy cooks and entertain often and I couldn't stand the thought of chasing people around with coasters. We've been living with white macauba quartzite for 7 months now and I love it- it doesn't stain, etch, or chip and seems VERY hard and not at all prone to flaking. We actually have it as all of our bathroom counters as well (same slabs.) I also love that I can put a hot pan on it without worry- I beat the heck out of those counters and they look brand new. I know you said you're not interested due to "flaking" and cost, but I'd have a look if I were you!

At my last house I had Caesarstone Raven which is a smoky gray with hints of misty white running through it. It was beautiful and I loved it so much I'm actually thinking about getting it again in my current house. I compared it with a lot of different colors, and the color is just right- not too brown not too cold. However last time I made the mistake of getting it honed and it smudged constantly. I did wash it multiple times a day but it was ridiculously difficult to get smudges out. Everything made it smudge. After trying mfg recommendations, I constantly ended up having to do something the manufacturer said not to do and use other solvents to try to get smudges out. It was really bad when the Sun lit up the area. Now I'm actually thinking about getting Caesarstone Raven without a matte finish in my current home but I'm wondering if I would be better off trying to find a Silestone equivalent color. So far I haven't been able to do that. I like the charcoal soapstone in silestone but it has blue undertones and looks a bit too cold. Any good recommendation for a smoky gray that's not too cold or too warm so it ends up looking brown?

I am in the middle of having my kitchen renovated with all of the new cupboards and bench tops installed earlier this week. I was super excited about my choice of Caesarstone Cloudburst - I am already hugely disappointed. I am barely using my new kitchen yet as am still waiting for the plumbing to be finished so basically just making coffee and very light cooking. I have been very careful but it marks very easily and if the mark is not picked up immediately then it’s a mission to remove i.e light coffee spill. I had already purchased the recommended Caesastone cleaners so had it on hand. Seriously it did not move the mark. I ended up using Ajax which is probably not at all good for this product but I was desperate (and extremely upset). I do not recommend Caesarstone Cloudburst at all and advise anyone considering it to take notice of the reviews and choose another product with good recommendations. My bad choice has been a very expensive mistake and I truly wish I had taken more notice of the reviews. Buyer Beware!!