Dolomite Polished Marble Hexagon Mosaic Tile

Most white marble is calcite. Dolomitic marble contains magnesium carbonate instead, which is harder and markedly less reactive to acid, and two consequences follow that matter more on a polished face than on any other finish. The stone takes a finer polish and holds it longer, because a harder crystal resists the micro-abrasion that gradually dulls a calcitic surface. And the etching that ruins polished marble in kitchens, the dull ring left by lemon juice or a limescale product, is considerably slower to appear.

The colour is unusually clean. Where Carrara carries grey drift and Calacatta carries bold vein, dolomite here is an icy, near-uniform white with only whisper-fine grey and the occasional warm thread. Polished, it becomes the brightest surface in the catalogue, which is the point of it: in a small internal bathroom or a windowless cloakroom it returns light instead of absorbing it.

Two-inch hexagons keep enough face area for the polish to read as a continuous sheen rather than as scattered points of light. As with any polished floor, reflection is a poor substitute for grip where water stands; the joints between hexagons do that work, and a honed or tumbled surface would do more of it.