December 2, 2018 I posted to GW my experience with getting Black Venata soapstone counters. My plan has been to leave them in their natural gray state rather than darkening them with wax or mineral oil. The problem with leaving them un-oiled is that 1) like marble, some kinds of soapstone are soft and will scratch or chip, leaving fine white lines or marks and 2) any splatters of oil or grease show up as dark splotches and, although they don’t sink into the stone, they do cling to its surface, requiring more than just a quick wipe of a rag.

Here are my findings to date:

1) I’ve had my soapstone countertops for a month and half now and the Black Venata (a somewhat soft variety of soapstone) does scratch and chip. It Is like marble in this way. But, the white veining in the stone pretty much makes any scratches or dings invisible. And any scrapes seem to oxidize in a couple of weeks and fade away - rather like what happens with butcher block. For me it is like having marble or wood as a surface material except it doesn’t stain or etch, and it is impervious to heat.

2) The effort required to remove oily splatters absolutely did bother me, but thanks to advice of another GWer I tried Simple Green, a degreaser along with a gentle scrub with the scratchy side of a two-sided sponge. This works like a charm, but I really don’t like the smell of Simple Green. I do recommend using Citrasolv concentrated cleaner and degreaser (Valencia Orange) scented). I use a tiny amount of concentrate direct out of the bottle with again, a gentle scrubing with the rough side of the sponge. Citrasolv seems to rise off with a lot less water than Simple Green. I‘m now using the same product in its dilute form as a general cleaner. Some other “Soapies” have recommended Dawn dish soap - the blue shade. That works really well too - sometimes you have to apply a drop in its concentrated form. Bottom line is that grease clings to un-oiled soapstone, but is easy to remove.

Now that Ive figured out how to clean my counters I really happy with soapstone I picked. I love the Black Venata variety in its natural color and it seems to be not a problem to keep it that way.