Italian cars, Italian couture, and Italian lovers are high maintenance, but I don't think there is any reason to believe that Italian stone is inherently hard to maintain.

Looks beautiful! Do you know how hard the stone is (say, on the mohs scale)? Do you have a sample of it that you can abuse?

I don't know how hard it is on the mohs scale, but I couldn't scratch it with my finger nail like I could with the barroca. I couldn't get a sample since they just got it in and didn't have any scraps. I'll be sure to get one now that it's my slab.

I really love the look un-oiled too, but in a way that's what makes me wonder if it's been pre treated with some kind of sealer. I just don't want to get sandstone prettied up to look like soapstone.

It looks just like my Belvedere. We keep it unoiled.

My Belvedere is rock solid, no scratching or chipping or dings or dents, even after a can of soup fell from the upper cabinet. You cannot scratch it with a finger nail either.

{{!gwi}}

That is a lovely soapstone.
I have only used the wax/oil provided by my dealer once in 6 months. It doesn't look like I'll need to use it again(which is good since I can't find the application sponge he gave me--how could I lose that in such a small space ?)

We have smoke soapstone; it was from Brazil. We don't oil it, or haven't yet-we like it unoiled. Ours is on the softer side, but we love it. We've had it for ~2 1/2 years:

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Thanks for the reassurances! That smoke of yours leela looks just like what my guy was calling barroca. As long as I can test a spot with some lemons and be sure that it doesn't etch I don't care what it's called.

@leela4 This is an old thread, but I wanted to add that Smoke Soapstone is still being marketed in 2020. I've just been sold a remnant of it for a bathroom countertop which looks more like the photo that @leela4 posted with a medium green background and veins of pale yellow. I cannot scratch it with my fingernail, but I can lightly scrape the edge of the remnant with the handle of a thick plastic spoon. The stone looks darker when wet, almost black, which would be similar to the appearance if oiled. I anticipate that it will be a durable stone given its relative hardness to some other soapstone varieties that can be more easily scratched. In a bathroom, water and heat resistance (for hairstyling tools) are more important than scratch resistance would be such as in a kitchen, so soapstone of almost any variety would be well suited to a bathroom, I think.