Wow... never heard that one! I have steel grey leathered granite (it’s also called brushed, same thing, different term... I understand there isn’t an industry standard for the name of that finish) anyways, I ADORE my leathered granite. I was a little concerned that it might harbor more crumbs just because you can feel the texture on the surface, but that hasn’t been an issue at all! It wipes up super easy. It’s not like the texture feels scratchy, rough, or jagged in any way; it’s quite smooth. We’ve had our counters for about two years now and my kitchen gets heavy use, I mostly use a damp sponge to wipe it, sometimes I use a cleaner and a rag. The damp sponge is likely more cause for concern than anything else, yet we aren’t dropping like flies over here. LOL!

If you want leathered granite you won't like honed. i believe the leathered finish is created by extremely high pressure sand blasting and honed is just that, the granite without being polished to a shine. i think honed looks like polished granite that's 'worn out'. Find a different stone vender.

skmom, I've seen and love your kitchen! I thought it was pretty strange since he was the only one that seemed adamant about not using leathered in a kitchen, and he even had me confirm over the phone, like, "Do you understand this, and would you want to move forward with leathered in your kitchen, knowing what I just told you?" I told him that I've seen it in lots of kitchens and hadn't heard that as a concern. Then he just explained what the costs would be to do so as though there wouldn't be any issue doing it.

Thank you so much Kieko Childs! :) We sure didn’t hear anything like that from our granite people. I do think it was the only leathered slab I saw though, both in their warehouse and at other places we considered slabs. Our salesman just said it’s a fairly new technique and he steered me away from another different stone when I said I didn’t want fingerprints to be an issue. Turns out, the technique has been around for awhile, but it’s still fairly uncommon in my neck of the woods. (Midwest) I think if I had seen the Virginia Mist leathered I would have swooned even harder for it than my steel grey, which I adore and would get again in a heartbeat. In fact, I’m trying to decide if it might look good for our future bathroom gut job remodel... I like it that much. (I’m still too far near the beginning of the planning stages for that to know exactly what color options I want to narrow down on. Not sure if I want dark or light counters in a bathroom yet.) We did have a granite repair man come out after some time... we had some minor chipping around the sink (I have three teen boys who don’t like to do dishes and a lot of cast iron... grrrr... but the repair was under warranty and he did a fantastic job, you can’t find the repairs... but an eased edge is the easiest to chip...) anyways, he stopped dead in his tracks when he came around the corner to see my kitchen. Actually, it was the walnut waterfall island that stopped him and he gawked over it like it was a rare super car, so that was super cool... but then he saw my leathered granite and said “your kitchen doesn’t look like anybody else’s I’ve seen and I’m in tons of kitchens everyday. You made a smart choice going with this leathered granite!” Anyways, that has been my experience. (That, and the few friends we have that are in real estate beg us to let them know if we ever want to sell because they think it will get snatched up really fast... we have no plans in the near future to move.)

Since a leathered finish has the “high spots” lightly polished and honed is not polished at all, what your fabricator told you makes no sense. LOVE my leathered granite counters...everyone who sees them for the first time “pets.”