Sealing Marble: More Marble Weirdness

In yesterdays post I showed a test I did to try and see how susceptible marble is to staining. I did a comparison test between unsealed marble and sealed marble. If you want to read about it, you can, but in short I did a series of 10 minute tests with various food stuffs, and then finished off with a one hour torture test.

Here’s is the final shot after the final hour long test.


The sealed marble surpassed even my own expectations. The unsealed marble did show significant discoloration. I guess that’s to be expected, right? Everyone says marble stains easily. I decided to do one more test. This time I slathered on more tomato paste, red wine and smooshed in some lime3 juice and lime peel. I left it in the sink over night. This morning it was kind of dry and crusty and I left it there until around noon. I got sick of looking at it so I scrapped off the mess. The tomato paste had really dried on around the edges. I was forced to get out a green scrub pad to get it off. When I was all done it looked pretty much as it did at the end of yesterday’s test. That’s the picture above.

To sum it up, the marble sealer worked fantastic. Even after sitting in the sink all night caked in things that should have stained it – that is, if you believe what you’re told – it came out looking great. The untreated side didn’t fair so well. There was no one particular stain, it just had an over all dinginess to it. The white part of the marble was no longer really white, it was more gray.

I decided I had proven the point that the sealer worked and I didn’t bother taking any more pictures. I figured the test was over and I had proved my point. There was no need to write any more about it, or so I thought. The real surprise came 2 or 3 hours later.

I cleaned up the little test piece and left it on the counter and went about my day. Just a few minutes ago I went in to the kitchen and the dinginess was gone! All it had to do was dry and it was almost as good as new. The food stuff did some staining but it turns out to have been very minor. It was the water that was causing most of the discoloration. The sealer is still a good idea, and it will help with the glass rings and just regular protection. The truth is, though, sealed or unsealed the marble does just fine by itself. It’s all a myth. Marble is no more or less susceptible to staining than anything else. What it does have a problem with is soaking in water and turning dingy until it dries. That’s where the sealer comes in. It keeps the water out.

Here’s what it looks like right now. The marble in the background is the slab that had no testing done on it.

Can you guess which side of the sample has the sealer.