Holiday Re-Runs: The Experiment of Etching Marble: Bathroom Edition

Happy Holidays!
This week I'm stepping away from the blog and I'm posting re-runs of our most popular posts from 2011.  
Today's article was originally posted on 4/19/11. We all know that it takes a certain type of person to use marble in their kitchen, but people ask if it's smart to do marble in their baths as well.  I'd recommend it!  See the results below.
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Last year I did my own experiment to show how marble etches in the kitchen.  You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

When I was doing this first experiment, after I had all the kitchen ingredients on the marble my husband asked me why I hadn't put any bathroom items on the marble.  Honestly, I hadn't even thought about it.  Marble is much less likely to etch in a bathroom because usually you don't have too many acids in there. 
I say this, but I must mention that the limestone in my own Powder Bath etched.  Someone had dripped a couple of globs of Bath & Body Works liquid soap on my Seagrass Limestone countertop and I didn't notice it until the next day.  When I wiped it up there were a couple of etched spots on the countertop.  So, while we aren't cutting lemons in the Powder Bath there are other items that are in our bathrooms that will etch the calcium based stones.
I put together a whole new test using bathroom stuff.  I decided to conduct this experiment on two different marbles, Carrara and Emperador Dark.  I thought it might be helpful to see the difference between a light and dark marble.

Here is a list of the items I put on the marble pieces...

• Face wash
• Hairspray
• Nail Polish Remover
• Lotion/ Body Cream
• Perfume
• After Shave Lotion
• Nail Polish (red!)
• Toothpaste
• Shaving Cream
• Liquid Hand Soap

I taped off sections on each marble piece and dabbed the items on.  I then let them sit for about 24 hours.  Obviously 24 hours is longer than most people would let red nail polish sit on their countertops, but I'm going for a worst case scenario here.

The next day when everything had dried up it was kind of a pain to get off.  I had to use a razor blade for a lot of it.

The results were a bit surprising to me.   

Carrara marble

Etched

Stained

Face Wash	No	Yes
Hair Spray	No	No
Nail Polish Remover	Yes	No
Lotion/ Body Cream	No	No
Perfume	No	No
After Shave Lotion	Yes	Yes
Nail Polish	No	Yes, but not as bad as you’d think!  J
Toothpaste	No	Slight Stain
Shaving Cream	No	No
Liquid Hand Soap	Yes	Yes

Emperador Dark marble

Etched

Stained

Face Wash	No	No
Hair Spray	No	No
Nail Polish Remover	No	No
Lotion/ Body Cream	No	No
Perfume	No	No
After Shave Lotion	Yes	Yes
Nail Polish	No	No!
Toothpaste	No	No
Shaving Cream	No	No
Liquid Hand Soap	Yes	Yes

My husband just uses an After Shave Lotion, not the liquid stuff.  It's probably the liquid After Shave that I personally have had the most issues with etching with homeowner's in the past. 

All in all I was surprised with how few of the products actually etched or stained the stones.  I was quite impressed that the red nail polish didn't even stain the Emperador Dark and barely stained the Carrara!

Also keep in mind that different brands of face wash, toothpastes, etc may affect your stone differently.  The type of marble will make a difference as well.