Be sure she doesn't do that again. Depending on how hard your stone is you can refinish this yourself if you're handy. It is easier to do than sanding wood. I have Minas which is sort of soft. I did my own stone work and I loved how easy it was to work. I have mine finished at sandpaper grit 220. I did mine by hand, I would not use a sander. Do you have any samples of your stone to practice on? I worked from a 60 or 80 sandpaper, through each sandpaper level to end at 220.

Or you can have your stone worker come out and refinish the stone for you to get it back to it's beauty.

I don't have any extra stone..tell me, how is sandpaper different from a scrubbie? They both seem abrasive and I am really scared to put something else on it that might wreck it more. And I'm not sure I understand what you mean that you worked through each sandpaper leven to end at 220...I don't mean to sound stupid, I just want to understand everything...thanks for your help!

I feel for you but it sounds like there is hope here. I know almost nothing about this but I think that means you sand with relatively coarse and then a little finer and then a little finer paper on and on up to very, very fine, which is termed "220". The higher number means the finer the "scrubiness". I think it's like you would do with wood, coarse at first then finer and finer.

Maybe post a new thread asking specifically for help on that.

Well, who installed your counters? They should be able to fix this for you. It is an easy fix but you'd have to have some knowledge of working with sandpaper. Since you are afraid you might do more damage, I suggest that you get your installer to refinish it. There are youtube videos that show how to work with soapstone. Again, if you are uncomfortable with this get your stone worker to do this for you, and ask him to show you how to do it for the next time.

Here is a link that might be useful: demo of sanding out soapstone scratch

And here is a cute youtube video of a girl carving soapstone. It shows how easy it is to work with.

Here is a link that might be useful: Playing with Soapstone (youtube)

Thanks..That demo link makes it look so easy. Has anyone ever done this? And can someone explain how the sandpaper will fix it, but a scrubbie ruined it? I'm willing to try this, but don't want to make it worse...

The scrubbie is extremely coarse. That's why it "ruined it". It really should be quite easy to fix. Start with sandpaper at 180, when it looks better, but still has fine lines, move up to 220. You can actually go up to 300 plus grit. When you really don't see the lines anymore, stop and rewax. If it still isn't good enough, just do it some more.

The only danger I can think of in doing this yourself is if you really, really sanded a lot in one spot, it's theoretically possible to create a dip. But just use common sense and keep checking the state of it and you'll be fine. That's the beauty of soapstone.

Has anyone sanded large areas of scratches in their SS IRL? Just waiting for some big time encouragement here!

I don't think you are going to be comfortable doing this yourself. Call your fabricator. He/she will probably be willing to come out and do a touch-up...and MIGHT be willing to teach you how to do it in the future.

But, I'd like to do it myself if it is as easy as I have been reading about. So I'm just hoping someone here has had some experience doing this...

Well, I've had a couple of deepish long scratches I've worked on and I've had a section where a scrubbie did similar damage to yours and I've sanded them out myself. I can't of course promised that your soapstone will behave the same as mine does, and I will say that I'm of the "patina-desirable" school. But I had NO trouble bringing it back to the same condition as the rest of the soapstone.

You know you have very little or nothing to lose by trying. If you find that using a fine and/or extra fine grit sandpaper doesn't bring it back to where you're happy, then talk to your fabricator about coming back to touch-up.

thanks house_obsessed. Can you give me more info on how you did it and how much sanding you did at the site? Did you use various grits of sandpaper?
thanks for your response. My soapstone is not extremely hard, probaboy mid-range for softness.

I used 180 grit followed by 220 grit. I worked at the deeper scratch area for 5 minutes at most. I think once you get up your nerve and just start, you'll see what's happening pretty quickly. If you are nervous, just stop, wipe off the dust, wet the soapstone and see how it looks. If it looks scuffed up, but scuffed up more finely, go to the finer grit. If you STILL dislike it, go by some 300 grit sandpaper, but at 220, mine looks very smooth.

Honest, it's not rocket science.

This is similar to removing 'issues' from automobile paint finishes. You start with coarser sandpaper and move up to finer and finer grit. Eventually your are polishing the surface.

Dont rub hard, just rub. You can use something like a sponge and wrap the sandpaper around it. Circular motions.

Gig, do you have any samples or remnants left on which to practice? That would be a good way to work on your sanding skills!