When we thought we couldn't find a fabricator for the soapstone we loved we almost went with honed Raven. Not that it looked particularly like soapstone but it was dark and the honed wasn't shiny. But the honed Raven sample seemed like it might stain with oil and it certainly showed fingerprints.

In the end we found a fabricator and installed soapstone. Two and a half years later I still love it. In my opinion, it's more practical than quartz. Sure I could scratch it but the scratches buff out with a green scrubby pad (we have a hard variety -- Beleza). And we do have few small chips around the sink edge but I'm not sure that wouldn't have happened anyway with quartz (the quartz tops in the showroom we visited were certainly chipped along the edge). And our counters simply don't stain and don't show fingerprints. We never oil (ours is naturally dark) and they do show oil spots, which are easily wiped away. And I can set any hot thing down on them with impunity.

All that said, I was quite taken with the Raven C'stone. It's just not soapstone.

if we hadn't gone with the soapstone we would have gotten the ceaserstone raven. lovely counter material.

For a while I was considering honed Oceanstone, which I was told was a quartz, not granite. Very beautiful material. If you look in the finished kitchens blog, I believe there is a kitchen that has Oceanstone counters.

Go to the FKB and look up Mamadadapaige's kitchen. She used Ocean Green granite, honed. It is beautiful. She chose it specifically because it looked like soapstone. She got it from Gerrity Stone in Massachusetts.

Thanks, sayde--that's the kitchen I was thinking of....
Oceanstone....Ocean Green--I think it's the same thing, or close anyway.