Concrete coloring and staining field guide for decorative slabs

Five ways to color concrete, and when each one goes in

Coloring concrete means adding decorative color to a slab, and there are five methods that each put the color in at a different stage of the work. Integral color is pigment batched into the wet concrete so the whole slab is colored through. Dry-shake color hardener is a pigmented powder broadcast onto the fresh surface and floated in. Acid stain is a reactive chemical that colors cured concrete. Water-based stain and dye color cured concrete without a reaction. Paint sits on top as a film. They are not interchangeable, and picking the wrong one for the slab is where most decorative-color jobs go sideways.

The split that matters first is when the color goes in. Integral color and dry-shake hardener go in while the concrete is fresh, at the pour, so they are decisions you make before the truck shows up. Acid stain, water-based stain, dye, and paint all go onto concrete that is already there, new or old, so they are decisions you can make later and apply to a slab someone else poured.

The other split is how permanent and how deep the color is. Integral color runs full depth and cannot wear off. A stain colors the top surface and lives or dies on the prep under it. The stamped install guide covers integral color and hardener on a stamped pour, and the sealer and coatings guide covers the topcoat that protects all of this. This guide is about the color itself, how each method works, and how to keep it from surprising you.

Integral color: pigment through the whole batch

Integral color is pigment mixed into the entire batch of wet concrete, so the color goes all the way through the slab. Add the pigment at the plant or in the truck, mix it in, and every cubic inch of that concrete carries the same color. The payoff is that the color cannot wear off, fade away at the surface, or scar pale when the slab chips or takes a saw cut, because there is no surface layer of color to lose. What you see is what the whole slab is.

The dosing is by weight of the pigment against the weight of the cement, not the whole mix, and the supplier sets the loading for the color and the cement content. Hit the same dose, the same cement, the same water, and the same source materials batch to batch or the color drifts. Add water at the site to loosen a stiff load and you lighten that load relative to the one before it. Integral color punishes a sloppy batch more than gray concrete does, because the eye reads a color difference it would never notice in plain gray.

The limits are real. Integral pigment tints the gray rather than replacing it, so the palette runs to earth tones, tans, browns, terra cottas, soft reds, and muted greens, and it tops out softer than a stain or a hardener can hit. You also pay for it by the yard across the whole slab, even the part nobody sees. For deep or bright color where the eye lands, crews often pair a base of integral color with a dry-shake hardener or a stain on top. Pigments for integrally colored concrete are addressed by ASTM C979.

Dry-shake color hardener: surface color and a harder skin

Dry-shake color hardener is a blend of pigment, fine silica sand, and cement broadcast by hand onto the fresh, floated surface and then floated and troweled in. It does two jobs at once. It lays a rich, saturated color in the top layer where the eye actually lands, brighter and deeper than integral color can reach, and it builds a harder, denser wear surface, because the extra cement and fine aggregate worked into the top raise the surface strength above the base mix. That harder skin is why hardener is the standard color method on stamped concrete and on flatwork that takes traffic.

The application is a feel. You broadcast in two or three passes, letting each lift of powder drink the bleed water and darken before you float it in, rather than dumping it all at once. Broadcast it uneven and the color comes out blotchy, light where the powder was thin and dark where it piled. The broadcast-and-float step is the skill, and it is the same step that, done wrong, generates the color-inconsistency callback.

Because the color lives in the top layer, deep damage that goes through the hardener shows the gray underneath, unlike integral color. On stamped work the hardener carries the base color and a colored release powder carries the accent in the grout lines, the two-tone antiquing the stamped install guide covers in full. Hardener brings the brighter color and the harder surface. The trade-off is that it sits in the top and has to go down even.

What is acid staining concrete?

Acid staining is coloring concrete with a reactive stain, a solution of metallic salts in a mild acid that chemically reacts with the lime in the concrete to deposit permanent, translucent color. The acid opens the surface, the metallic salts react with the calcium hydroxide left from cement hydration, and the reaction grows mineral color that becomes part of the concrete. It does not coat the slab. It changes the color of the slab itself, which is why a true acid stain cannot peel or chip off the way a film can.

The look is the reason people choose it. The reaction is never perfectly even, so the color comes out variegated, mottled, and marbled, the way natural stone is, with depth and movement a uniform color cannot fake. No two slabs come out the same, and that is the point. The trade against it is control: you do not get to pick an exact, repeatable color, and the palette is narrow, the earth tones the metallic salts can make, ambers, browns, tans, terra cottas, and soft blue-greens. There are no true blues, bright reds, or whites in a reactive acid stain.

Because it feeds on the lime and the surface chemistry of the concrete, the result depends as much on the slab as on the stain. A hard-troweled, dense surface takes less color than an open one. An old slab, a patched slab, and a slab with surface lime differences all react differently across one floor. Acid stain takes the character of the concrete it is on, and you manage that with a test area, not by fighting it.

Water-based stains and dyes: the non-reactive color

Water-based stains and dyes color concrete without a chemical reaction. They are pigments or fine coloring particles carried in water or a solvent that lodge in the open pores of the surface and color it by sitting in the concrete rather than reacting with it. Because nothing has to react, the color is far more predictable and more uniform than an acid stain, and the palette is wide open: the earth tones an acid stain gives plus blues, greens, reds, and even black and white that the reactive chemistry cannot make.

There is a useful split inside this family. A water-based stain is a pigment that gives an opaque to semi-opaque, even color, and many of them will layer to build depth or fake a mottled look if you work them. A dye is made of much finer particles that penetrate deeper and read translucent and intense, and dyes are the color of choice for polished concrete floors, applied during the polishing process so the color goes in as the floor is refined. Dyes give the most vivid color of anything here.

The catch on the dye is exposure. Most concrete dyes are not UV stable, so they fade or shift in sunlight and belong on interior floors, not outside. Water-based stains run the range, some exterior-grade and some not, so confirm the product against the exposure. The polished-floor side of this is its own discipline. The topic is dye applied in the grind, and the sealer and coatings guide covers the floor system that protects it.

What is the difference between a reactive and a non-reactive stain?

A reactive stain, the acid stain, colors concrete through a chemical reaction with the lime in the slab. A non-reactive stain, the water-based stain or dye, colors concrete by depositing pigment into the pores with no reaction. That one difference drives everything else about how they look, what colors you can get, and how you apply them.

Reactive acid stain bonds chemically and becomes part of the concrete, so it is the most permanent and the most weather and UV resistant, which is why it is the usual reactive choice outdoors. The cost is a narrow earth-tone palette and a variegated, unpredictable result you cannot dial in exactly. Non-reactive stains and dyes give a wider color range and a more uniform, repeatable result, and they apply faster because there is no reaction to wait on and no acid residue to neutralize. The cost is that they generally sit in the surface rather than becoming the surface, so they lean harder on the prep and the sealer, and the dyes in particular are not for sun.

The decision usually comes down to look and exposure. Want the natural, mottled, stone-like depth and an exterior slab, reach for the reactive acid stain. Want a specific color, a uniform field, or a vivid interior floor, reach for a water-based stain or a dye. Plenty of decorative work uses both, an acid stain for the base mottle and a water-based stain to layer in a color the acid cannot make.

What is the difference between concrete stain and paint?

Stain colors the concrete. Paint coats it. A stain, reactive or not, penetrates the surface and colors the slab itself, so it does not change the texture and it cannot peel. Paint and film coatings sit on top of the concrete as a layer of color, like paint on any other surface, so they hide the concrete instead of coloring it and they live or die on bond, the same way any film does.

That is why stain is the decorative standard on concrete and paint is not. A film of paint on a floor wears through where feet and tires hit, peels where moisture pushes up from under the slab, and chips at the edges, and once it starts to go it looks worse than bare concrete. A penetrating stain has nothing to peel, so it wears by slowly thinning rather than failing in sheets. The moisture that delaminates a floor paint is the same vapor drive the sealer and coatings guide covers, and it is the reason a film on a slab on grade is a gamble that a stain avoids.

Paint and solid-color film coatings do have a place, on a slab that is too stained, patched, or worn to take a translucent stain evenly, where a solid opaque color is the only way to get one look. But that is a coating decision, covered by the sealer and coatings guide, not a staining decision. If the goal is decorative color that lasts on concrete, stain beats paint almost every time.

How do you prep concrete for staining?

Staining lives or dies on the prep, because a stain has to get into the concrete to color it, and anything sitting on the surface blocks it. The slab has to be clean, bare, and open. A sealer, a curing compound, a coat of old paint, glue, oil, grease, or even a hard-troweled, burnished surface all keep the stain from penetrating, and where the stain cannot get in, it does not color. This is the single most common reason a stain job fails: someone stained over a surface that would not take it, and the color came out patchy, weak, or not at all.

The field test is water. Sprinkle clean water on the slab. If it soaks in and darkens the concrete, the surface is open and will take a stain. If it beads or sits, something is sealing the surface and has to come off first. Strip old sealer and curing compound, degrease, and remove every contaminant before you go near a stain. On a dense or sealed surface you mechanically open it, by grinding or a light profile, rather than trusting an acid wash to do it.

Cleaning matters as much as opening. Dust, efflorescence, the white surface salts that bloom on concrete, and leftover stripper residue all interfere with the color, so the slab gets cleaned, rinsed, and allowed to dry to the state the product wants. Acid etching as a prep is weak and inconsistent and leaves a residue that has to be neutralized and rinsed, which is why most crews grind instead. Skip the prep and you own the stain failure. There is no stain good enough to color a surface it cannot reach.

Applying acid stain: react, neutralize, rinse

Applying an acid stain is a controlled chemical process, not a paint job, and the steps go in order: prep the surface, apply the stain, let it react, neutralize it, rinse it, and only then seal it. Apply the stain with an acid-resistant pump sprayer, often worked with a brush or broom for the pattern you want, in thin even passes. The stain looks alarming going on, fizzing and foaming as the acid reacts, and the wet color is not the final color, so do not judge it until it is rinsed and dry.

Then you wait for the reaction. The stain needs time on the surface to react with the lime, commonly several hours, up to overnight, with the time set by the product and the temperature. When the reaction has run, you have to stop it and clean it, and this is the step people skip to their cost. Neutralize the surface to halt the acid and lift the spent residue, commonly with a baking soda solution, around one part baking soda to ten parts water, or an ammonia solution, then rinse with clean water until the water runs clear and the slab reads neutral. Leftover residue or a film of neutralizer under the sealer is a cloudy finish waiting to happen.

The acid is real and so are the fumes. You wear chemical-resistant gloves, eye protection, and a respirator, you ventilate an interior space, and you protect everything you are not staining, because acid overspray etches glass, eats metal, and burns plants and skin. The full safety section below is not optional reading on an acid job. Let the slab dry completely after the rinse, confirm the color, and seal it, because an acid stain has to be sealed to hold its color and its look.

Applying water-based stain and dye: spray, layer, build

Water-based stain and dye go on faster and cleaner than an acid stain, because there is no reaction to wait on and no acid to neutralize. You spray, roll, sponge, or brush the color onto a clean, open, dry slab, and the pigment lodges in the pores as the carrier flashes off. The method you pick drives the look. A sprayer with a back-roll gives the most uniform field. A sponge, a rag, or a layered spray pattern gives a mottled, variegated effect closer to an acid stain.

Color builds in coats, and that is the lever. A single light coat reads thin and uniform; additional coats deepen the color and let you layer two or three tones for depth, spraying lighter and darker passes so the floor reads with movement instead of flat. Work wet to wet for blends, and let coats flash between passes where the product calls for it. Because the color is predictable, you can match a chip far more closely than with an acid stain, which is the reason to choose it when a specific, repeatable color is the requirement.

Dyes follow the same idea with finer, more intense particles, and on a polished floor the dye goes in during the grind so the color penetrates as the surface is refined. Mind the exposure. Most dyes are interior-only because they are not UV stable, and not every water-based stain is exterior-grade, so confirm the product against where the floor lives before you spray it.

Do you have to seal stained concrete?

Yes. A stain colors the surface, and the surface is exactly what gets walked on, rained on, and worn, so the color has to be sealed to protect it and to bring out its depth. This is most true of the stains and dyes that sit in the surface rather than reacting into it, but even an acid stain wants a sealer to hold the color, resist stains and wear, and develop the rich, wet look that makes the variegation read. An unsealed stained floor looks dull and chalky, picks up dirt and grease, and wears the color away faster than it should.

The sealer is also where the color finally shows up. A stain looks flat and pale dry, and the first coat of sealer darkens and saturates it into the color you actually sold. Pick the sealer for the exposure and the look, the way the sealer and coatings guide lays out: a decorative acrylic for color and sheen on most stained flatwork, a penetrating sealer where freeze-thaw protection and a natural look matter more than gloss, and a harder floor coating where an interior floor takes abuse. Interior stained and dyed floors are often finished with a polish and a guard or a film for the wear.

Apply it thin and even, two coats beat one heavy flood, and seal a slab that is clean and dry, never one that is damp or still carrying stain or neutralizer residue. The same blushing, bubbling, and slick-when-wet failures the sealer guide covers all show up on a stained floor sealed wrong, and on a colored floor they are more visible because they sit over the color you were protecting.

Can you stain old concrete?

Yes, you can stain old concrete, and an existing slab is one of the most common things crews stain, because it is the cheapest way to turn a plain or tired floor into a decorative one. The catch is the same as on new concrete, only worse: an old slab has years of sealer, paint, glue, oil, mastic, and dirt on it, and all of that has to come off before the stain can reach the concrete. The prep on an existing slab is most of the job. Strip it, grind it, degrease it, and run the water test until the slab drinks water, then stain.

There is a second catch on old concrete: you do not always know what is in it or on it. Old patches, different concrete batches, power-troweled hard spots, stains soaked into the slab over the years, and previous coatings all color differently or block the stain in spots. That makes the test area on an old slab even more important than on a new one, because the old slab will surprise you in ways a fresh one will not.

New concrete is the opposite problem: clean but green. A stain, especially an acid stain that feeds on surface lime, wants the slab cured first, and many stain manufacturers call for about 28 days before staining, which lines up with the slab gaining most of its strength and the surface settling down. The exact wait is the product maker's call and it stretches in cold weather or with slag or fly ash in the mix. Stain a slab too green and the color and the chemistry both come out unreliable.

Color consistency, the slab, and the test area

Concrete is not a uniform canvas, and a stain takes the character of the slab it goes on, which is the fact that surprises owners more than any other. The concrete itself varies, batch to batch and within one pour. The finish varies, a hard-troweled area takes less color than an open one. Moisture in the slab, surface lime, patches, cracks, and old contamination all change how the color comes out. With an acid stain, where the color is a reaction with the slab, this variation is the look. With a water-based stain it is muted but still there.

This is why the test area is the one step you do not skip on any staining job. Before you commit the floor, stain a real test patch, on the actual slab, with the actual product and the actual process, and let it dry and seal it so the owner sees the true, sealed color, not the wet color. The test area tells you how this slab takes this stain, which is information a color chart cannot give you, because the chart was made on a different slab. It also gives you and the owner a physical reference to sign off on and to point to when the floor cures a shade off.

Manage the expectation in writing. A stain, especially an acid stain, is variegated and slab-dependent by nature, so the right promise is a range and a reference sample, not an exact, uniform color. The owner who expected a flat, even color and got the mottled result they were never shown is the dispute the test area prevents. Stain the sample, seal it, get it signed, and keep it.

UV, fade, and interior versus exterior color

Color fade outdoors is driven by sunlight, and the methods do not handle UV equally. Reactive acid stain is the most UV stable, because the color is a mineral reaction bonded into the concrete, which is why acid stain is the usual choice for exterior decorative color. Integral pigments rated for the use hold up well outside too. At the other end, most concrete dyes are not UV stable and will fade or shift in sun, so dyes belong on interior floors. Water-based stains fall in between, with exterior-grade products available, so the product label, not the family, tells you whether a given stain can take the sun.

Exterior color has a second enemy the inside floor never sees: freeze-thaw and deicing salt. The color sits on a slab that is taking weather, so the same exposure that scales an unsealed exterior slab attacks a colored one, and the protection follows the sealer guide, a breathable penetrating sealer where freeze-thaw and chlorides are the threat, an exterior-grade film where the look needs it. The sealer also carries the UV protection that slows fade on the colors that need help, so the topcoat is part of holding the color outside, not just protecting the surface.

Interior is the friendlier home for color. Out of the sun and the weather, dyes and the full color range come into play, polished and dyed floors hold their color for years, and the maintenance is a recoat or a polish rather than a fight with the weather. Match the color method to where the floor lives. The vivid dye that looks incredible on a retail floor will turn on you on a patio.

Repairing, touching up, and recoloring

Colored concrete is repairable, but how you fix it depends on the method, and matching color on an existing decorative floor is its own skill. A worn or faded stained floor often comes back with a clean, a fresh coat of stain or a toner to deepen the color, and a reseal, because much of what reads as faded is really a worn sealer dulling the color underneath. Strip the tired sealer, freshen the color where it needs it, and reseal, and a floor that looked done can look new.

Spot repairs are harder, because a patch is new concrete in an old colored floor and it will not take color the same way. A patch in an acid-stained floor is the worst case, because the patch has different chemistry and reacts differently, so blending it in takes a water-based stain or a toner worked by hand to fake the surrounding mottle, not another acid stain. On an integrally colored slab a patch shows because you cannot batch-match the original color in a small repair, so the move is often to stain or tone the patch and a margin around it to blend.

The maintenance the owner owns is the sealer, the same reseal cycle the sealer and stamped guides cover. A stained floor that gets resealed on schedule holds its color for a long time; one that never gets resealed wears the color off and reads as failed when the real problem was maintenance. This is why the record of what color and what sealer went on the floor matters, because the person recoloring or resealing in a few years starts from that record or starts from guessing.

Acid stain safety: the hazard nobody should rush

Acid stain is the one decorative-color method with a genuine chemical hazard, and it gets treated like one or someone gets hurt. The stain is metallic salts in an acid, the fumes during the reaction are acidic, and the spent residue is acidic, so the exposure runs from the moment you open the jug to the moment the rinse water runs clear. The hazards are skin and eye burns, breathing acid fumes, and the acid attacking everything it touches that is not concrete.

The protection is not complicated, it just has to actually happen. Wear chemical-resistant gloves, eye protection or a face shield, and clothing that covers skin, and wear a respirator rated for acid mist, especially indoors. Ventilate an enclosed space, because acid fumes build up in a closed room and there is no toughing that out. Mix and handle the chemistry the right direction, acid into water and the neutralizer dissolved in water first, because dumping baking soda into a bucket of acid foams over into a mess. Protect glass, metal, fixtures, and plants, because acid overspray etches windows, corrodes metal, and kills landscaping.

Neutralizing and rinsing is a safety step as much as a finish step. You are not done when the color looks right; you are done when the acid is neutralized, the residue is rinsed off, and the wash water is captured and disposed of the way the local rules require, because acid rinse water is not something you send to a storm drain without checking. Read the product safety data sheet before the job, not after the burn. The stamped install guide and the sealer guide both cover the finishing around the color. The acid is the part of this work that bites back, so respect it.

Commercial polished-and-dyed and industrial colored floors

On commercial interiors, the polished-and-dyed concrete floor has become a default, because it gives a finished, colored floor out of the structural slab with no flooring to install and little to maintain. The floor is ground and densified to a hard sheen, and a dye is carried in during the polishing so the color penetrates as the surface is refined. Retail, restaurants, offices, and showrooms run dyed polished floors because the color is vivid, the surface is hard and cleanable, and there is no coating to peel under cart and foot traffic.

Industrial and warehouse floors color for different reasons, usually durability and marking rather than looks. A dyed or stained polished slab holds up to forklift and pallet-jack traffic without a film to wear through, and color can lay out safety zones, aisles, and work areas in the floor itself rather than in paint that gets ground off. Where the floor also needs chemical resistance, the color decision sits under the coating decision the sealer and coatings guide covers, because a high-build coating changes how and whether you color the slab.

Data center floors are a tight case. The white-space floor cannot dust and cannot delaminate under racks, so it leans to a densified or dyed polished slab rather than a film, and where it is colored the dye goes in with the polish so there is nothing on top to fail. Color on these jobs serves the room, cleanliness, traffic, and sometimes static control, with the look secondary, and the spec and the product data control the choice over any decorative preference.

What to document

A colored or stained floor is a finish someone will have to match, repair, or reseal years out, and none of that works without a record of how the color was put down. The color method, the product, the dose or the dilution, and the sealer are all choices that products and crews forget, and stains and dyes get discontinued and renamed, so write it down while the job is in front of you.

Record it by area, because a building can carry different color methods room to room. Capture the method, integral, hardener, acid stain, water-based stain, or dye, with the manufacturer and the color name or number, the dose or dilution and the number of coats, the surface prep done, the test-area approval and date, the neutralizing and rinse on an acid job, and the sealer product, type, and coats. Keep the signed test sample. The crew recoloring or resealing in a few years, and the one patching after a repair, both start from this record or start from a guess.

Common mistakes

• Staining over a sealer, curing compound, paint, or a hard-troweled surface, so the stain cannot penetrate and the color comes out patchy or not at all.
• Skipping the water test before staining, so nobody catches that the slab is sealed until the stain will not take.
• Leaving an acid stain unneutralized or unrinsed, so spent residue clouds the floor and the acid keeps working under the sealer.
• Using paint or a film instead of a penetrating stain, so the color peels and wears through instead of lasting.
• Staining with no test area, then discovering the real, slab-dependent color on the whole floor.
• Promising a uniform, even color from an acid stain, which is variegated and unpredictable by nature.
• Not sealing the color, so a stained floor dulls, chalks, and wears the color away.
• Putting a UV-sensitive dye or a non-exterior stain outside, where it fades or shifts in the sun.
• Staining new concrete too green, before the cure the product calls for, so the color and the chemistry come out unreliable.
• Skipping the acid-stain PPE and ventilation, treating a chemical process like a paint job.

Field checklist

Standards and references

Decorative color leans on the manufacturer more than most concrete work, because the stain, the dye, the pigment, and the sealer are an engineered system and the product data sheet is the document that actually controls the application. Coverage, dilution, reaction and dwell times, neutralizing, recoat windows, UV suitability, and compatibility all live there and vary by product, and they override any rule of thumb in this guide. The project specification sits above the data sheet where it is stricter, and a signed test area is the practical acceptance standard for the color.

On the materials side, ASTM standards cover the pieces. Pigments for integrally colored concrete are addressed by ASTM C979. The membrane-forming curing and sealing compounds and the curing of the base slab fall under standards like ASTM C309 and C1315, which the sealer and curing guides cover. The base slab and the decorative work follow the ACI framework for slab construction, finishing, and curing, and ACI and the American Society of Concrete Contractors and its Decorative Concrete Council publish guidance on coloring, staining, and decorative finishes worth knowing. Confirm the current document numbers and editions before citing them on a submittal, because they are revised on a cycle.

Surface preparation references the International Concrete Repair Institute and its concrete surface profile scale, CSP 1 through 10, that sets how open a surface a coating or topping needs, and the same prep logic, clean, open, and contaminant-free, governs whether a stain can penetrate. Acid-stain handling, neutralizing, rinse-water disposal, and PPE follow the product safety data sheet and the local environmental and safety rules. Verify every number against the adopted edition, the project spec, and the product data, which together control over anything here, and treat the acid safety and the test area as the two steps that are not optional.

Units, terms, and conversions

Decorative color carries its own vocabulary, and the same idea reads differently across a catalog, a spec, and a data sheet. Integral color dose is given as a percentage by weight of the cement, or as a pounds-of-pigment per bag or per yard loading. Stain and dye are sold as concentrates with a dilution ratio and a coverage in square feet per gallon, which runs higher on a tight, dense slab and lower on an open, thirsty one. Color names are manufacturer-specific, so the name on one chart means nothing on another maker's floor without a sample.

The methods also go by other names. Dry-shake color hardener is also called shake-on or broadcast color. Acid stain is also called reactive stain or chemical stain. Water-based stain is also called acrylic stain or non-reactive stain, and a dye is sometimes lumped in with stains even though it behaves differently. The terms below are the ones worth keeping straight, because calling a dye a stain, or expecting a uniform color from a reactive stain, is how the wrong product and the wrong promise end up on the slab.

Integral color

Pigment batched into the wet concrete, coloring the slab through its full depth

Dry-shake color hardener

Pigment, sand, and cement broadcast on the fresh surface and floated in for surface color and a harder wear surface

Acid stain (reactive stain)

Metallic salts in a mild acid that react with the lime in the concrete to deposit permanent, variegated, earth-tone color

Water-based stain (non-reactive)

Pigment in water or solvent that lodges in the pores for a wider, more uniform color, with no chemical reaction

Concrete dye

Fine, intense coloring particles that penetrate the surface; vivid but usually not UV stable, so interior-focused

Neutralizing

Stopping the acid reaction and lifting residue with a baking soda or ammonia solution, then rinsing clean before sealing

Variegated

The mottled, marbled, uneven color an acid stain produces, where the slab and the reaction drive the look

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