I am sure that you are all familiar with polished and honed finishes on stone. Just in case you are not; a polished stone has a high shine that is achieved though diamond or silica-carbide grinding at the factory. A honed finish is very flat, smooth to the touch with no visible scratches or saw marks but not reflective. Both of these finishes can be easily (if somewhat expensively) created or re-instated in sit-tu via a professional grinding company.

Both finishes have their pros and cons too; polished surfaces can look spectacular and be relatively easy to clean, but they will wear and etch to reveal the dull natural stone finish, necessitating periodic re-polishing. Whereas honed finishes can look great when the are new and offer generally good slip resistance, whilst they don’t suffer from quite the same dulling effect as polished, they can get quite grubby looking very quickly if neglected.

One other finish that has been popular is the brushed or antique finish. This method involves brushing the stone’s surface at the factory with rotary brushes with bristles that are just hard enough to gently erode the stone. The result is a slightly bumpy and gently undulating surface that is still very smooth to the touch. This differs from the much better known ‘tumbled’ finish in that it is more refined and ‘smoother’ with the straight edges of the stone often still in tact (the tumbled finish is created by tumbling the stone in rotating drum or a large, skip-like trough that vibrates vigorously and is filled with abrasive materials to produced a pleasantly battered edge and surface finish).

But the brushing is only one part of the effect, unlike with tumbled, the brushed marble is then often treated with a liquid wax which is buffed to a fine, soft shine. The net result is a beautiful look and feel, very soft and smooth to the touch. I must admit I can see the appeal of this finish, but it does have a down side – It can be a real pain to maintain.

The problem is that the wax is not a very permanent coating, it comes really off easily, often during installation, especially the grouting and grout clean-up process. If it does not come off during the installation then once in use it can be taken off by a variety of things; general cleaning, most detergents, even mild, neutral ones will quickly strip the wax, I seen several shower cubicles where just the hot water from the shower was enough to strip the finish. In some cases the wax is just partially stripped and left white and hazy on the surface. I have also seen countless ring-marks from shampoo bottles and the like that had simply been placed on the tiles for a few moments.

The other problem is that the wax itself is really just a finish, it does not offer the same benefits that a sealer would. Sure it offers a small degree of initial surface protection, and may provide a temporary protection against etching for example, but it is only a thin coating, not particularly well bonded to the stone and it offers no real stain protection; liquids can penetrate it easily and then of course they are straight into the stone.

It is not really possible to seal it either; first the wax has to be stripped, no point trying to seal over or through wax. So, if it is stripped, and a good impregnating sealer applied then you will find it hard to reapply wax afterwards – as the sealer will want to repel it. So how do you maintain it? Well the only thing I can suggest is to keep the original wax finish well maintained. This means that you will first have to find the right product (and the best place to start is to ask the retailer who sold you the stone, if they don’t know, then ask them to get the manufacturer’s recommendations for a maintenance product) – you are looking for a liquid wax dressing or top coat. You will need to clean the stone with a mild neutral cleaner, let it dry then, following the selected product’s instructions, reapply more of the wax, possibly each time you wash the floor, you may need to buff the floor also.

In conclusion I would say that this type of stone finish is very attractive, if maintained in good condition, the question I would have to ask myself though is: “Am I prepared to maintain it?”

Copyright Ian Taylor and The Tile and Stone Blog.co.uk, 2013. See copyright notice above.