Did your fabricators attempt to seal it? I'd kinda suspect the sealer is starting to flake.

My understanding is that soapstone is NOT sealed, only oiled.

Well, it's not supposed to be sealed. But many fabricators that aren't familiar with soapstone seal it anyway. And it usually ends up causing problems.

Right. No, this was NOT sealed, but I appreciate the suggestion.

Any other ideas for what could be causing this out of the blue, and what I can do about it?

Hopefully some of our local DIY'ers who are way more knowledgable about soapstone then I will chime in, but do you use just oil, or a wax oil combination? And here's a real long shot-are you doing something new in that area? For example moving something with a roughish bottom around on it that you weren't doing before? (opening a can, or getting something routinely out of a glass jar or canister?)

We use beeswax only, although truthfully, we haven't been doing it regularly. I don't think we're doing anything new there-- there are the garden-variety scratches that come from pots, etc. But typically, we even avoid putting hot things on the counter (even though I know it's supposed to be OK).

Do you think sanding it down would help?

Well, let me ask you a question. Are the white spots depressions? That is, are they lower than the surrounding countertop?

I agree with leela4, in that they appear to me to be small scratches/dings. Do you know whether they appeared all at once, or are they "growing"?

Of course, you can sand it out. However, go slowly, and use a sanding block to back up the sandpaper. Otherwise, you can develop uneven sanding. My soapstone has fairly smooth texture, so I use 320 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper with water.

My soapstone has been in for almost 4 years too and I have a small patch of white marks from the sugar jar but they do not look quite like yours. They are sort of hard to see in the pic but there are quite a few, they do not bother me at all as they blend with the stone and created a slightly aged appearance that I like.

{{gwi:1584167}}

I wonder if your wax is causing build up. Your stone appears to have an overly dulled, cloudy appearance which may just be from the lighting. If it is dulled by something that has been used on the stone you could possibly deep clean it with acetone, I would have a stone professional look at it if I were you.

BTW, in reference to the comments on soapstone and sealants my counters are sealed, it is a misconception that sealants do not work with soapstone. Sealants are not needed but they do bond and darken the stone (if color enhancing sealants are used) without flaking or any other issues. Obviously this is beside the point as you have not used sealants.

This post was edited by athomeinva on Wed, Jan 9, 13 at 16:50

Florida Joshua is a name I used to see on this board when it came to soapstone problems (he worked on several people's soapstone). He has a company in Florida (obviously!) called Creative Soapstone. Perhaps he can identify the problem from your photo. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Florida Joshua

To me they look like depressions filled in with residue of some sort. Perhaps soap residue? Or perhaps mineral buildup from hard water? I might try sanding a tiny spot and seeing if you can remove it.

I used to throw my keys on one spot on my table back about 5 years ago. . . after about 6 months it looked like that. I'm a fan of what leela4 said.

Proper refinishing typically fixes surface issues with soapstone. I would do some research before hand. Your soapstone looks like it's a forgiving variety.

I dropped entire jar of coins on my soapstone once and it looked like that. A bunch of dings. Have you or do you drop anything there?

This looks a lot like the pitting we get with day-to-day use on a very soft soapstone variety (so the source is typically things like accidentally setting down a bottle of olive oil or a Mason jar that has ridging on the bottom). I'm curious to know if refinishing can help much with a stone that does this routinely, though--are there different surface treatments/refinishing techniques that can make soapstone less prone to pitting/dinging like this? I would love it if it took four years (or even six months!) for this to happen on ours!

I've gotten feedback that proper refinishing does help. My past custy's often tell me that what showed up before in daily use doesn't after our refinish work. I often do my best to educate, and once you know how soapstone will respond to what, it's quite easy to care for. Covering all of this is true soapstone has a lot of talc in the stone. It is what makes it unique and truly different. This is why we love it right? So because it has talc in the stone it will scratch and chip. The proper fabrication and finishing of the stone can keep these at a minimum and can even keep them from showing up as much, but it can never really keep it gone forever.

Thanks! I'll have to look and see if there are any West Coast folks who do the refinishing (since we used the major soapstone place to do the work in the first place, so I'm guessing calling them won't help...) I'd love to even just get it to the point where we can set jars on it without worry, since that's a major annoyance--the scratches and dings from actual use don't bother me since I see that as part of the patina, but having to remember to check the bottoms of things I want to set on the counter makes me crazy! We have definitely learned how to plan around it over time, too, though.